Church schools ‘should offer placements’

Enrolment restrictions to various B.Ed. courses can be eased if the government made it mandatory for Church schools to provide student-teacher placements, according to Labour education spokesman Evarist Bartolo.

Last Friday, the Faculty of Education announced that a number of B.Ed. subject areas would only be accepting a limited number of students.

As a result, several students who had applied for their favoured course at the end of July risked being left out of University, or having to enrol in a course they did not favour.

Seven B.Ed. subject areas, among them Maltese, social studies and geography, had already been subject to intake restrictions in the past. Last week’s announcement extended the restrictions to seven more subjects, including primary education, maths, science and computing.

Mr Bartolo said it was time for a committee to analyse the current system, look at teaching practice schemes abroad and come up with a revised system which would better serve Malta’s teaching needs.

Although declining birth rates played a part, the number of students in any given B.Ed. course depended primarily on the number of student-teacher placements available, Mr Bartolo said. While state schools are obliged to make placements available, Church and private schools can decide whether or not to do so at their own discretion.

Given that Church schools received public funding, they should be required to take in student-teachers, Mr Bartolo said. He also suggested that private schools consider playing a role, given that they benefited from graduate teachers.

As things stood, state schools were shouldering the entire burden of the teaching practice system.

This was especially crucial, Mr Bartolo said, in light of the reform in the Church schools admissions system. Over the coming years, a larger proportion of secondary students will end up in Church schools.

If the current student-teacher placement system was not reformed, these restrictions on B.Ed. admissions would worsen with every passing year, Mr Bartolo warned.

Speaking alongside Mr Bartolo, Labour higher education spokesman Owen Bonnici said students who had only been informed of the course restrictions last week should inform themselves of their rights and seek redress.

Students had been told “teaching areas with a limited amount of places will be announced as soon as possible” when applying. These restrictions were only announced last Friday, a mere couple of weeks prior to the start of the first semester.

This delay, Dr Bonnici said, could constitute a breach of the University’s “legitimate expectations” clause.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Faculty of Education implied that the various secondary schools were to blame for the delay in announcing the restrictions.

“The faculty initiated contact with the competent authorities in December 2010,” it said. “Once schools provided the faculty with the available placements, the University published the list.”

The restrictions, it added, were also partly down to the growing number of applicants. While there were currently 218 students reading for a degree in primary education, this year the University received 213 applications for the same course.

General Workers’ Union Youths called on the Education Ministry to ensure none of the students affected by these enrolment restrictions would be left out of University.

Students, it said, should have been informed of the admission changes before they entered Sixth Form, not three weeks before the start of the academic year. They should not be made the victims of a lack of planning.

The Malta Union of Teachers sounded a note of optimism. Through a concerted effort, it said, the current situation could be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and teaching practice placements could be found for all prospective students.

It too called for a restructuring of the teaching practice system.