Thursday, 4th December 2008 - 16:22CET

Teachers 'want to be consulted' on reforms

Many teachers taking part in meetings on the proposed educational reforms relating to the removal of streaming, the Junior Lyceum examination and the progression from primary to secondary education, felt the meetings were not genuine consultation, opposition education spokesman Evarist Bartolo said today.

He said the teachers felt they were being faced with a fait accompli and that the meetings were advertising and promoting the reforms as decided by cabinet.

They were becoming more confused when senior officials in education privately expressed their concern and lack of agreement with the reforms but then spoke favourably about them in public.

The Labour Party appealed for the meetings to be genuine consultation with the full participation of educators. No educational reform for the benefit of children would be seriously successful if educators did not agree with it and if it was based solely on orders “from above”.

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Article © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on Sunday, November 8, 2009. This article is for personal use only, and should not be distributed.

Comments

Mario Mercieca (on 4/12/08)

The education reform has been long coming, as the same thing is already being done in St Benedicts Boys, Kirkop. Now if the goverment intends to widen the process, it still has to take account of what the teachers and parents think about it. Whoever set up the new policy has been far from the classroom for a long while. The idea of placing children at random in the same classroom creates problems for good students and teachers alike. SO something needs to be done such that the JL exam is removed, and students go to thesecondary schools without hiccups, but dividing motivated students from disruptive students in the process as these are the greatest threat to our educational future.

I. Camilleri (on 4/12/08)

Well said Mr. Bartolo. We for first didn't have any consultation. Just the principal imposing the Cabinet's views and whoever tried to speak his/her mind met with utter disagreement by the same principal......all this through subtle threats......