Mcast seeks vulnerable learners’ benefit
A lecturer overseeing two students training in an Mcast workshop.
Mcast principal and CEO Maurice Grech explains how the college is embarking on a €7m project to review its curriculums, upgrade assessment procedures, and train staff to improve its service to vulnerable students to help them succeed in their studies and secure employment.
A €7 million project proposed by the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (Mcast) entitled ‘Inclusion for Employment’ has been approved for co-financing by the Planning and Priorities Coordination Department (PPCD) of the Office of the Prime Minister.
The college had submitted the project for approval under Priority Axis 3 of the Operational Programme II – Empowering People for More Jobs and Better Quality of Life of the European Social Fund.
Mcast’s 156 full-time courses offer students – regardless of their achievement at secondary school – a wide range of further and higher vocational education programmes to pursue at the various Mcast institutes.
The students range from those who have the appropriate entry qualifications to start their post-secondary education at middle-range or even higher-end diploma levels, to those who need tobegin at the introductory and foundation levels.
One of the college’s major challenges is to make sure all students without exception are provided with optimal learning opportunities for them to succeed, progress in their studies and secure sustainable jobs.
Since its inception 10 years ago, Mcast has helped thousands of students recoup opportunities missed during compulsory education, providing them with the required skills and competences that have increased their prospects of employability. But we know there is always room for improvement.
The fact that the dropout rate among the lower level students worldwide is high, is no consolation.
One of the major challenges for any further education college is to help students maintain interest in learning while recovering the lost ground of their earlier school years within a relatively short period of time of, for example, one or two college years.
Through this EU project, Mcast is aiming to rectify this situation. It is embarking on a three-year action plan which includes the revision of curricula and syllabi of 45 different programmes at levels 1, 2, 3, as well as of our ‘Pathway to independent living’ programme.
The project will also result in the design and creation of new dedicated teaching material and other resources for lecturing staff, the reviewing and upgrading of assessment tools and procedures, and the training of lecturing and support staff to ensure the optimal provision of lecturing for vulnerable groups.
Both the Embedded learning approach and the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) method will be seriously considered during the planning stages of the project.
Embedded learning combines the development of literacy, language and numeracy with vocational and other skills.
The UDL, on the other hand, isa curriculum-centred method intended to increase flexibility in teaching and lower the barriers that often limit students’ access to material and learning in classrooms.
In other words, the vocational subjects are used as a vehicle to provide the key skills necessary to be able to proceed to more advanced educational experiences.
Mcast also offers the Pathway to Independent Living programme for another group of vulnerable students, namely those with mild to moderate intellectual disability. These students will receive enhanced training in key skills such as Maths, English, Maltese and Information Technology and personal and social skills, as well as ‘trade tasters’, which introduce them to various vocational areas of application.
The implementation of this project will help Mcast extend its provision through higher retention rates on its introductory and foundation programmes in particular and the improvement of student progression to higher levels of education and training. This will invariably result in enhanced prospects for all concerned and, ultimately, reduce the number of people who are not in education, employment or training.
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Pule' Carmel
Nov 6th 2011, 14:45
Would Primary, Secondary, MCAST, University please consider the provison of Facilitators and Benefits for the High Fliers in a class as they are becoming so miserable, being held back to move at a slow pace with the others!
And would the Ministry of Education please stop baring Physics curicula for m Mathematics. Physics have become so bare ot its true details and analysis that it is no longer Physical it is totally Reading exersice, and most of it is learnt as a parrot, not fully undrstood. Reading is one thing , mathematical analysis is another, they paint differnt pictures. Please stop this ravishing and murdering of Physics, Stop catering too much for the vulnerable and weak students and give the high fliers an opportunity to fly and fly, Some people responsible at head office is cutting the wings of our high fliers. Our high flying students are treated like the crown in the Tower of London. They clipp their wings off so that they will not fly as it is believed that the British Empire would fiiiinish if the crows leave the tower of London. At the rate Malta caters for the weak and the vulnerable, and roping in the high fliers withthem ,, our Nation and our workforce will never fly.
Please help all those who need it, BUT STOP HINDERING THE HIGH FLIERS. they are becoming miserable and fed up like racing hirses wanting to run but others are holding them back.
Incidentally this type of talk will not get me a promotion as if I talk about inclusive education where I touch the heart of many students, lecturers, and parents who want to keep education at the lowest levels. but I am in a position in life where I NEED TO SAY IT FOR THE GOOD OF OUR NATION IN THE LONG RUN.
Pule' Carmel
Nov 6th 2011, 14:22
I hope this is not through, reducing degrees to two years and more corrections by lecturers of the student's assignments and a quicker route for unqualified people to become lecturers as happenend in the past, not to mention no examinations for vulnerable students, and the yahasra , yahasra, imsieken, imsieken theory, for students and staff.
Perhaps one should look at the outsourced IT couses and see what qualified lecturers are being used at the schools winning the contracts! not to mention the behaviour of the students, thier attire and attitude.
To be kind is to be cruel in the long run as standards will fall, and in Malta they have fallen enough with Physics at O level being ravished of mathematical calculations and it has become qualitative in nature as any religion or hisotry or any news on Television.