Updated - Evarist Bartolo warns against 'one size fits all' in minimum curriculum

 The shadow minister for education, Evarist Bartolo, said today that the drafters of the National Minimum Curriculum did not appear to have made adequate comparisons of how the Maltese education system shapes up when compared to other countries.

Speaking at a press conference, he also complained that there was no linkage between the national Minimum Curriculum and the e-learning platform, despite the importance being given to the latter.

He regretted that a 'one size fits all' was being adopted to teaching in general and language teaching in particular. It was essential, he said, that students ended secondary school with a sound knowledge of Maltese and English as well as a third language.

Mr Bartolo said there was a need for a social analysis of the education system. There could no longer be a situation where areas like the Inner Harbour Harbour, with 31% at risk of poverty, had the same education system and curriculum as school in areas which did not have such serious social problems.

The curriculum, he observed, introduced national benchmarking instead of the junior lyceum exam, but Sec and Matsec remained there. There needed to be a more holistic approach to educational assessment.

The curriculum, he said was too restricted and did not allow teachers the necessary room to manoeuvre according to the needs of their class. People learnt in different ways but the education system in Malta was only recognising academic achievement at the expense of vocational learning. Different ways of learning had to be recognised and treated as different but equal.

He said he would also like to see greater emphasis on science in the primary level in order to encourage more students to follow science subjects later in school. He asked how students were starting off with a general science subject but then were faced with biology, chemistry or physics exams at the end of secondary school.

Mr Bartolo called for early screening of children with learning difficulties - which does not mean children with disabilities. Such screening, he said, should ideally be carried out at pre-kinder level so that children with learning difficulties such as dyslexia could be given more effective education.

Mr Bartolo asked if budgetary cuts which the government has said it will introduce would affect education, particularly the national minimum curriculum.

EDUCATION MINISTRY REACTION

In a reaction, the Education Ministry said the Nationalist government has made it amply clear that it strongly believes that a heavy investment in education is a crucial part of its policies to eliminate social exclusion, promote employment opportunities and create a competitive economy that can withstand the challenges that arise in today's and tomorrow's global markets.

"The reforms undertaken in recent years all have this underpinning philosophy. A strong and consistent investment in education is essential and Government has committed itself to carry out a number of essential reforms to achieve its ends."

It said the comments made by Mr Bartolo showed a superficial reading and understanding of a number of policies that are the foundations of today's education sector.

"The Draft National Curriculum Framework definitely does not provide a one size fits all model as is evident throughout. In fact, it lays the groundwork for the flexibility that schools urgently require to address to range of educational needs of their students in the current social multicultural context. The backbone of this document is the differentiated outcomes-based curriculum, currently being piloted and reviewed as a case-study in Form 1. Mr Bartolo's concerns confirm how necessary it was to present the implementation of the principles of the National Curriculum Framework in practice so that the public would be able to realise and understand that we require a model other than one size fits all for schools and students," the ministry said.

"The comprehensive reform in compulsory education that is being undertaken by the present administration has a number of complementary facets that are all equally important and necessary. These include, but are not limited to: the development of the Colleges system, the restructuring of special schools, and the restructuring of student services, the transition reform including the introduction of the benchmark assessment, the core competences strategy, the national eLearning strategy as well as the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) which includes a differentiated outcomes-based curriculum and the introduction of the vocational subjects in compulsory education. It would be a misreading of the National Curriculum Framework draft document and a misunderstanding of the complexity of the reform process itself to expect all these facets of the reform to appear in a single document, that is, the draft National Curriculum Framework which focuses on the entitlement of a quality education for all our students in a differentiated multi-cultural context"

The ministry said early screening of learners is already acknowledged as a necessity. Screening with respect to literacy as from Year 1 is already being catered for in the Core Competences Strategy, and KG provision is being reviewed to strengthen this area as well. Early screening is being prioritised by the Statementing Moderating Panel, and this service has been revamped recently.

The ministry said the education budget would be ring-fenced with respect to further cost-cutting decided by Cabinet.