Updated: Ministry denies that schools reform is 'mismanaged'

Opposition education spokesman Evarist Bartolo said today that while he was not against the substitution of the junior lyceum exams with benchmark tests for the transition from primary to secondary school, the government was mismanaging the change, which was worse than no change at all.

His claims were swiftly denied by the Ministry of Education, which said the reform was based on broad consultation and two years of preparation.

Mr Bartolo said reform was not only desirable, but necessary. However change had to be holistic and not piecemeal, as was happening.

The replacement of the exams with the benchmark tests would see teachers having to work with mixed ability classes, and yet they were only being offered 20 hours of specific training, as laid down in their collective agreement, which was far from enough.

They were also not being given additional resources.

He feared that the biggest, negative impact would be on what to date had been the Girls junior lyceums, where very good results used to be achieved.

Mr Bartolo complained that his call for proper funding for such an important reform had not been heeded.

This, he said, was a reform with many loose ends. For example, the new national minimum curriculum was supposed to have been issued in 2009 but had not yet seen the light of day. Officials were working on syllabi without this new curriculum having been issued.

Neither had the Matsec system been upgraded, and yet, the students who would be the first to experience the new benchmark tests would, in two years, have to select the subjects which they would follow for Matsec.

Mr Bartolo also noted that the opening of St Benedict in the context of the new colleges system was meant to have been a pilot project, yet no detailed report had been presented and not enough had been learnt from this development.

MINISTRY'S REACTION

In a reaction, the Ministry of Education said the reform was being carried out after a broad consultation process with teachers and parents.

The process started two years ago when streaming was removed in Years five and six of primary schools.

Many of the decisions were taken on the recommendation of teachers and experts from the University. The many aspects of the reform were discussed by a committee of representatives of church, private and government schools, where agreement was reached.

Training sessions for teachers were held over the past two years, during which new resources were employed. These resources were uploaded on the website of the Curriculum Department and also given to parents.

More meetings with the public and those involved with education were being held ahead of the first assessment process in June.

Other meetings will be held with teachers and parents about the new secondary school experience as from next September when Form One students would go to school within their same college rather than junior lyceums or area secondary schools.

All this belied the claims that the process was not well planned or that it was being hurried, the ministry said.

It was also not true that the teachers were not well prepared for the change.