Children who cannot speak Maltese or English are disrupting school classes as they are unable to understand or communicate, according to the teachers’ union.
MUT president Kevin Bonello said that many were the children of Eastern European migrants who came to Malta to work. There were 2,000 such children in primary and secondary schools during the past scholastic year.
The union lambasted the government programme offering children very basic language skills as a “failure”, adding there were certain parents who did not send their children to these programmes, further complicating matters.
“Some foreign parents see Malta as a stepping stone and plan to leave the island after working here for a couple of years,” Mr Bonello said yesterday.
Through no fault of their own, they are unable to understand
“In the meantime, their children are not being offered quality education and are disrupting the rest of the class because, through no fault of their own, they are unable to understand.”
Moreover, education systems differed – in Croatia, for instance, children started school aged eight. So while Maltese Year 4 students would already have had a background in the education system, for a Croatian child the system would be completely new.
The union also registered an industrial dispute with the government after a new cultural programme on the Great Siege in primary schools absorbed teachers and deprived students of their arts, music and drama lessons.
Mr Bonello also lamented the fact that a meeting held two weeks ago with the Archbishop regarding “dubious and irregular” practices in teacher recruitment in Church schools had yielded no results.
He said one senior school had sacked the “incredible amount” of three probationary teachers a year, only to replace them with unqualified individuals.
“This is unbefitting of any employer, let alone the Church and is unfair on graduates who are just starting out in the world.”
It was high time the Church adopted a central recruitment system, rather than having each Church school operating in isolation, Mr Bonello said. However, the Church has argued that its schools each had their own ethos.
“So, for the argument’s sake, if a teacher is good for De La Salle, he might not be good for St Aloysius. To my mind, this is not a valid argument at all.”
He referred to “a very serious case” last year where a woman applied for the post of head of a Church school. Following the interview process, she placed first and was offered the post.
However, a day later, she was told that there had been a mistake and the offer was withdrawn. It turned out that, despite being Catholic, she was married to a man who wasn’t.
Mr Bonello referred to the newly opened Ġuże Ellul Mercer school, citing it as another case of “bad planning and lack of foresight”.
The school, which targets 16-year-old students who have not earned any O levels, was supposed to cater for 240 students. It instead had an uptake of just 40 students, leading to a number of educators having to be made redundant.
In a statement, the Education Ministry said it was “unfair and premature” of the union to condemn the project before its inception, adding that applications only opened last week and will remain open until the end of October.
Improve road safety – SDM
Studenti Demokristjani Maltin (SDM) has called for measures to improve road safety for Junior College students.
In 2013, the SDM had proposed two new zebra crossings and the installation of speed bumps. The proposal was approved by the Msida Local Council in January 2014 and plans were instantly forwarded to Transport Malta.
However, the works have not been done and it was now time to act, the SDM said.