Updated: Education Ministry explains strategy behind educational reforms

An explanation into the strategy being adopted for educational reforms was given by the government this evening, after the Malta Union of Teachers earlier torday urged the education authorities to clarify uncertainties faced by teachers ahead of reforms due to come in over the coming months.

MUT President John Bencini said at a press conference that the union backed the reforms, but it was concerned that teachers were being kept in the dark over their implementation.

The Education Ministry said in a statement that education was the government’s priority and 1,000 new people were employed in thesector in the past three years

It said that in the past five years training in basic skills was being given. This training generally lasted a scholastic year – three hours a week. Applications were always issued a year early so that schools would be able to plan.

A total of 27 consultative meetings on benchmarking were held with all teachers and the parents of sixth year church, state and independent school students.

Decisions were taken after a consultation process and dialogue between the three sectors. All church and independent schools are to implement the system except for four schools. This meant that there would be 91.7 per cent of sixth year students in three sectors who would be benchmarked.

The educational authorities had also set up a working group which drew up a document for national consultation. This was to be embarked upon in the coming weeks. New syllabi were being created for Form 1 to reach students of different abilities. It was true that heads of departments and educational officers were working on these syllabi.

A pilot project on the teaching of vocational subjects involving 20 teachers who voluntarily offered to teach the subjects was also currently taking place.

Other measures were also being undertaken and the educational directorates were also considering the recommendations made by those attending an MUT Forum, as well as other recommendations.

Mr Bencini said this morning that teachers were raising many questions on the revision of the national minimum curriculum, the new syllabus for Form One, the benchmarking exercise and how mixed ability classes would work.

Clarification of these and other issues was vitally important for the teachers, who would be at the vanguard of the reforms, he stressed.

Mr Bencini said that the long-awaited evaluation of the Colleges system had also not seen the light of day yet, despite its importance.

He expressed concern that too many things were being done at the same time, saying this might stretch resources, even though the changes were ultimately expected to be beneficial. These included the drawing up of new minimum curricula, new syllabi, the introduction of vocational subjects and the new school-leaving certificate.