Juan Ameen
Education reform consultation extended
A young student places a number of colourful drawings and coins under the foundation stone of a new school in Mosta.
Public consultation on the proposed education reform, which would do away with streaming and replace the Junior Lyceum entrance exams, has been extended by a month due to demand.
The consultation period was due to close on January 10 but interested parties now have an extra month in which to submit their suggestions and complaints on the reform, Education Minister Dolores Cristina announced yesterday.
The minister last month launched a consultation document on the transition from primary to secondary school, among whose aims is the reduction of stress for pupils and the elimination of negative effects associated with being placed in the lower-streamed classes.
A working group put together under the previous ministry had worked on the document for months. The Education Ministry has now decided to extend the consultation process following what was described as the huge response from schools, parents and associations.
Mrs Cristina made the announcement during the laying of the foundation stone of a boys' secondary school in Mosta that will form part of Maria Regina College. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi presided over the ceremony.
Thousands of concerned parents attended the consultation meetings to understand how the reform will affect their children, she said.
"There were parents who expressed great interest and made suggestions, those who spoke about their difficulties and others who questioned what was still worrying them."
The minister said that even though the overall reaction to the educational reform was positive, many suggestions and complaints were brought up.
After the consultation period, the suggestions will be evaluated for inclusion in the final proposals.
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cc.camilleri
Dec 20th 2008, 20:00
I fully agree with you Carmen. The experiment has been tried in the past and had disastrous results. I still meet persons who blame those days for their failure in achieving more in life. As you said the teacher has to decide at what speed he has to run his class. Either way somebody is to get hurt. I know that many teachers will opt not to jeopardise the bright ones and so the slow movers will be the ones that suffer. In my opinion putting pupils of the same category together to follow the same speed is much beneficial to them then mixed them up with brighter ones. They will find it much harder to follow up. This system has failed in the past and will fail now too. We are still experimenting with the education system.
carmen agius
Dec 20th 2008, 17:36
The main reason for removing the streaming method seems to be to get rid of the stigma attached to lower streams. I feel that the problem is just being swept under the carpet. the lower achievers will still be lower achievers no matter what class they're in unless they are given tasks according to their ability. . what is needed is to have a syllabus catered for them. that way they will be able to tackle it and their self esteem will rise when they start getting good results. As Gerard Cassar commented the way things are developing, the teacher will now have to decide the pace at which he or she will work and consequently one ability or the other will suffer. Furthermore, the stress on teachers will sky rocket but of course the powers that be (the experts) will expect the class teachers to make their ideas work. and if they don't it will be blamed on the teachers.
Gerard Cassar
Dec 20th 2008, 15:45
The subject of streaming is still being discussed. If eventually it is decided to carry on with streaming a problem may be created for teachers. Non streaming could gather in the same class promising students and not so promising. The teacher has a syllabus to cover. Will he proceed with the syllabus according to the brighter students pace or vice versa? Both have their defects. If the teacher follows the bright pupils pace the less bright pupils will perform badly and may result in discouraging them from continuing their studies... If the teacher covers the syllabus at the pace of the least bright ones the brighter pupils will suffer; they might look at the lessons as monotonous. The result on both instances will be more private lessons for bright pupils or the opposite, private tuition to the slow learners to catch with the class syllabus. In simple words the general standard will suffer. The syllabus will most probably take into account the less gifted ones or to the average standard. The result: a good number of students trailing behind.
If the present system has not created problems then it would be irresponsible to change it just to experiment.
Agnes Marmara
Dec 20th 2008, 14:26
One of the complaints aired by hundreds of parents was the fact that this year's year 6 students and next year's year 5 students will have to sit for the social studies and religion exams during the JL exams. This I believe is an injustice and the students should be relieved from the stress of studying these subjects for the exams. If we want to remove stress we should begin from this year. why wait two more years? are not these our children too? is it such a big problem to eliminate these two subjects from this year?