Education system has failed us, according to leading academic

Academics feel that an aggressive and comprehensive campaign to address the problem of students from certain parts of the country not taking up higher education is a must.

This wound has been festering for far too long

In a Victory Day speech last Thursday, University Rector Juanito Camilleri said it was unacceptable that students from certain areas did not further their education, pointing out that 3,000 graduates every year were not enough.

He is not the only one to think so.

Kenneth Wain, a philosopher of education, was even more blunt: “The system has failed us, not students or their families. This is something that has been preoccupying educators for a lot of time, that there are areas in Malta – the port area – where underachievement is rampant,” Prof. Wain said.

While he acknowledges that work on the national minimum curriculum and the new college system have a valuable part to play in addressing the problem, Prof. Wain thinks that so far the issue has been addressed in a piecemeal, “half-hearted” way that did not tackle the problem properly.

“We’ve known of the problem but, so far, there has been no serious attempt to see where it is coming from. People have a lot of hunches, some of which are educated ones, but the problem has to be addressed on a scientific level,” Prof. Wain said.

“There could be social causes, the conditions of the schools themselves. It could be a problem of turnover of teaching staff,” he pointed out, insisting that such a complex issue needed to be addressed from all angles.

He called for a commission to be set up to “take this issue seriously and address it once and for all” by all stakeholders, including the political parties and local councils.

“This is not just about educational standards but also social standards. You’re creating healthier communities, addressing problems of illiteracy, drug abuse, all problems which go along with deprivation,” Prof. Wain said.

“This wound has been festering for far too long.”

Education Minister Dolores Cristina said the inequalities were “bigger than the educational system”, pointing to the social and economic factors impinging on the performance of students from specific disadvantaged areas.

Unemployment levels, health-related issues and parenting skills all influenced tertiary education attendance rates. However, she said, the government had taken a number of initiatives to work towards eliminating such inequalities. She referred to the Cottonera region and pointed out work being done there through parenting skills classes and a study into high levels of absenteeism.

She cautiously welcomed Prof. Wain’s suggestion for a commission to be set up but warned that such a commission would need to go beyond the education system and involve other government departments.

In fact, it is clear to academics that the problem is not just within education.Educational psychologist Paul Bartolo believes that the community and family background go a long way to explain underachievement.

“We have to strive to make the educational experience meaningful to children and make learning relevant to their lives, whatever their interests or ambitions” Prof. Bartolo said. “They have to understand that learning is for life and that it is for them as well.

“This is something that has to be studied more deeply to see what is happening to the people that do not continue studying. We still do not have enough information on why they leave school, on why they do not seek to continue studying and what is happening to their careers,” he said.

Similarly, Peter Mayo, a sociologist in education, said that while changes “are necessary and welcome, they need to be the product of seriously engaged research and any reform that is introduced must ensure that all pupils receive that education to which they are entitled as citizens. There can be differences in the manner of learning but not in outcomes.”

The challenge was how to make learning effective for everyone, taking into account their background, without selling any students short in terms of what they were entitled to, he said.