Minister of Education Evarist Bartolo’s boas-ting about the initiatives taking place in schools and with families to enhance reading need to be accompanied by an equal resolve to assess their success.
The PIRLS 2011 results underlined the importance of ensuring independent reading from the earliest years through a combined school, family and community ap-proach. The National Literacy Strategy for All, launched in June 2014, finds its roots in the first Literacy Strategy of 2009.
The 2014 document, at least on paper, sought to build on most of the processes and programmes already in place, although the minister seemed to imply they were new initiatives. Also, and rightly so, it proposed a number of new initiatives.
However, in one critical aspect both the minister, in a recent article, and the national strategy itself were anything but innovative. Both focus on the supply side of literacy support – which old processes need to be enhanced, what new resources are required, and what new sectors need to be addressed. But not one word on how the success of this strategy is being measured.
This is anachronistic by this government’s own standards. The 2012 National Curriculum Framework (NCF), which this government has confirmed, was the first national education document that set performance indicators and targets. Bartolo’s Framework for the Education Strategy for Malta 2014-2024 highlighted the need for performance dashboards for the measurement of achievements and gaps in the context of European targets.
Yet the literacy strategy hardly had any references to the collection and use of data: they are mentioned only for the junior years. Nor did it include any performance indicators by which the strategy can be evaluated. And forget a published plan of implementation for its 138 proposals.
As a matter of good governance, the minister needs to tell us how many of the 138 proposals have been implemented and to what extent
How will we know if the initiatives being proposed are the right ones, if they need to be fine-tuned or even changed to ensure success when we have no compass to check their correct direction, no yardstick to measure their progress? The strategy rightly emphasises the importance of empowering and upskilling schools to develop and implement plans according to their needs and realities. This does not replace the need to have clear national targets for the implementation of programmes and processes.
I am not suggesting any form of league tables. But we do need national indicators that allow the public to be informed of progress in strategy implementation and its success or otherwise.
The literacy strategy is well into its second year. This government is in its third year. As a matter of good governance, the minister needs to tell us how many of the 138 proposals have been implemented and to what extent.
He needs to provide the implemention milestones for the remaining proposals. He needs to indicate the performance indicators by which the strategy will be evaluated and when and how this will happen.
Finally he needs to publish the performance dashboards that schools, colleges and the ministry itself at national level are using to gauge the ongoing implementation and success of the strategy.
It is only when the strategy, its implementation and success criteria are a matter of public debate that it will be truly owned by all. It is only when the government transparently holds itself accountable to its electorate for the success of its educational initiatives that real progress can be measured and problems addressed.
Anything less would be both amateurish and anachronistic.
Therese Comodini Cachia is a member of the European Parliament for the Nationalist Party.