'All children are equal learners'

The review committee that drew up the Transition from primary to secondary schools document is to be commended for its hard work and for beginning a dialogue among education policymakers and other stakeholders on important topics including transition, assessment, streaming and selection, and the need to address the achievement gap issue.

The staff of the University's Faculty of Education is keen to offer its support towards the realisation of a just and quality education for all, and to ensure that the issues surrounding comprehensive education and equitable outcomes are strengthened by robust argument and sound research.

The document was positively received for its proposals to remove the Junior Lyceum examination which has plagued our education system for many years.

It is educationally sound to move towards an assessment system that focuses on learning rather than selection, and on the holistic development of the child rather than on a one-off judgement made by an examination.

This vision defuses the 'disciplinary power' created by the examination, allowing for a more equitable system where children are able to show their successes and all they manage to achieve in different areas of the curriculum, rather than only in examinable subjects. It rids our educational system from the incongruence of professing inclusion while promoting streaming based on academic achievement.

Without the stress of a high stakes examination, children can be allowed to develop an identity based on personal goals rather than goals imposed by a curriculum. Educators should give children opportunities to feel they have achieved something worthwhile during their formal education at school.

By incorporating the views of students, parents and educators, the report provides a good description and analysis of the current situation, highlighting the moral obligation to relieve the stress the system is causing. The report has managed to get State, Church and independent schools focused on the same educational goals outlined in the reform.

The review has implications for students, parents, teachers and school administrators, policy makers, academics involved in teacher education, and student teachers who have been raised in an educational system they are now being invited to disown.

An infrastructure needs to be put in place to ensure that the proposed changes to the education system will win over the sceptics and have the support of all. The document does not provide information about a possible strategy towards implementation.

There is no information about in-service training and the models that will be used to train teachers to support them in their professional growth. It is essential to set up initial and in-service teacher training programmes targeting differentiated teaching, and differentiated assessment.

A schedule of priorities should reflect the phasing-in of the stages of implementation and assigning of responsibilities for monitoring changes. Thus, the Education Ministry directorates would be able to establish the human and financial resources required to support change.

What processes will support a transition from the vision to actual implementation and practice? The document appears to overemphasise the Junior Lyceum examination and its effects, without attributing equal importance to the paradigm shift that must necessarily come with the removal of the exam and the introduction of assessment procedures to replace it.

The pace and magnitude of the reform are not captured in the document.

Benchmarking raises a number of issues:

• How will this be achieved and who will be involved? State, Church and independent schools need to take part in this standardisation process.

• The authorities need to prevent the benchmarking from being perceived by the public as replacing the Junior Lyceum examination and consequently create stress in children and parents.

• Since standardised tests and audits are benchmarking parameters, it seems that examinations still occupy a central role in the educational system to assess progress.

Alternative methods of assessment, of which examinations are just one example, need to be given more visibility.

• What effect will such examinations have on pedagogies in classrooms?

• The benchmarking is linked to Maltese, English and Mathematics. To what extent can the proposed changes reflect a differentiated approach and move away from academic ability and achievement?

Benchmarking and standardisation make sense in an environment where learning supports learners' needs, teachers can adopt pedagogies that facilitate individual interests, and where the support provided by the school is second to none.

The document recognises that "each school is endowed with a vast repertoire of skills, experiences and needs and that this diversity enables and requires a pedagogy based on respect for and the celebration of diversity." (p.153). Yet large school populations are less likely to facilitate "individual support", and the recent trend to build schools which house many students contradicts the document's philosophy of individualised support.

Moreover, if schools and classroom practices are to be sufficiently flexible to allow for individual development, it follows that assessment procedures should differ to meet the needs of students.

The transition from primary to secondary education involves a change between two radically different cultures of schooling: primary school emphasises care and offers a sense of belonging while secondary school is oriented towards teaching subjects, emphasising differentiation of students according to achievement, producing experiences of fragmentation and isolation rather than cohesion and bonding. Such changes can lead to anxiety, confusion, lack of stability and subsequently, alienation and disengagement for individuals.

In organising students in 'settings' at secondary schools as a way of grouping, it is important to ensure that 'settings' do not become an alternative to streaming. Research shows that:

• Children in streamed settings have difficulties with regard to self-esteem and stress;

• Academic results obtained do not improve, especially for those in the lower sets;

• This system does not create an inclusive community of learners.

The curriculum review that is currently underway must address issues raised in the Transitions document. For example, the secondary school curriculum should address the need for vocational education and its integration within the academic component. The document started out as a critique of the 11+ exam as an entry point to evaluate the related but more complex issues of selectivity, streaming, and comprehensive education. Locally, examinations are the tail that wags the education dog: while changing assessment can have an impact on changing pedagogy, the focus on the 11+ exam skews the arguments in a particular direction.

Emphasis should be given more prominently to learning and its relationship with/to assessment. Changing assessment procedures is not enough to bridge the achievement gap between people of different social class, race, ethnicity, birth date, gender and other forms of social difference. The question that should be brought to the fore is: "What educational structures, environments and practices can we develop to ensure better learning outcomes for all?"

How can we promote the vision that all children are equal learners and that schooling (and lifelong learning) applies to all students without exception, and that all children want to and can learn if provided with appropriate curricula and opportunities?

Certain conditions need to be put in place to enhance the learning of all pupils in the Maltese educational system. In their absence, it is unlikely that a change in assessment procedures will serve to reduce the achievement gap.

This article presents a summary of a few of the issues and concerns raised by members of the faculty's six departments.

Prof. Sollars is dean of the University of Malta's Faculty of Education.