No to longer hours – teachers

The teacher’s union is adamant it will not agree to longer working hours but is open to negotiations if the Church wants to employ staff to carry out extracurricular activities after school.

“If the Church is interested in having extracurricular activities after school and employing activity teachers, we are willing to negotiate but when it comes to the hours of formal schooling, it is case closed,” the president of the Malta Union of Teachers, Kevin Bonello, said.

On Thursday, the Church’s environment commission said the draft national curriculum framework failed to address important issues such as extending school hours and raising teachers’ salaries to reflect new skills and the retraining needed.

The commission praised the curriculum for placing the student and the education experience at its centre. However, it said the framework tried to avoid “hot academic, administrative and trade unionist issues”. It said what worked in the past might no longer make sense today.

Since the framework was issued for consultation last year, the MUT has made it very clear it will not accept increased working hours for its members. Mr Bonello said the recommended timetables implied longer hours, which the union would not agree to.

“If we had to change the hours, half the teachers will leave because teaching will no longer be worth it,” he said. About 80 per cent of teachers were women who chose the career because of the hours and conditions, he noted.

Mr Bonello said that, last year, the union reached an agreement with the government allowing activity teachers to be employed to carry out extracurricular activities after school hours. Activity teachers were qualified but so far none had been employed. If the Church was interested in doing the same thing, the union was open to negotiations, he said.

Mr Bonello pointed out that the curriculum was not the place to tackle “complex” issues such as salaries and school hours. The union, of course, was in favour of increasing salaries for teachers who were loaded with added responsibilities.

Salaries were negotiated in the civil service agreement and working hours for state school staff were laid out in a sectoral agreement signed by the union and the government. Hours for Church school teachers fell under an agreement between the Curia and the union.

The Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education said the draft curriculum made significant proposals about numerous issues, including timetabling and the length of the school day, which were discussed during the consultation process.

“A curriculum framework sets out the vision for the curricular experiences of children in early years, primary and secondary schools and does not deal with issues such as teacher salaries,” the directorate said.