In the coming years, the country should start a discussion on whether the obligatory school leaving age should be extended from the age of 16 to 18, Edu-cation Minister Evarist Bartolo proposed yesterday.
He suggested it might be a good idea to extend the obligatory school age as it would help mitigate the problem of unemployment.
This discussion was a challenge which Malta will inevitably come face to face with in the coming years, the minister predicted. However, he acknowledged that such a change would create a “double challenge”. “If we are unable to convince children to attend school regularly until the age of 16, how do we go about convincing them to stay on until they are 18?”
Addressing a conference on the working poor organised by the Anti-Poverty Forum, Mr Bartolo stressed that the educational experience offered to students should be seriously evaluated. “Our schools are hospitals which do not offer the cure we need.
“We need to work hard on literacy and on different pathways to cater for different intelligences.
“What learning spaces are we creating to capture our children’s interest? You can’t put everyone in the same pair of shoes – you need to cater for people who learn differently.”
It’s not about how many chairs we fill but what educational experience we’re offering
Malta had among the lowest rates in the EU of students who remained in the educational system beyond the age of 16. Twenty-two per cent of children and youths were at risk of poverty. Twenty-one per cent emerged from secondary education without having acquired basic skills, while 20 per cent of fifth formers do not sit for their SEC examinations.
Additionally, 44 per cent of people aged between 16 and 24 years were neither in education, nor in training, nor registered as working. “Which begs the question – what are they doing?”
The problem was further aggravated by the “ridiculous and obscene” problem of absenteeism, with many students believing they were entitled to three days of ‘leave’ per month.
Some children ended up missing out on one third of their scholastic year. Truancy at secondary school level was a direct reflection on the educational experience offered.
“It’s not about how many chairs we fill but what educational experience we’re offering.”
The trick, Mr Bartolo continued, was to strike a balance between inclusion and diversity.
He added that he was “very worried” with the model of inclusion, which promoted the idea that if a child had a problem, he would merely be assigned a learning support assistant (LSA) and that would be the end of it.
“Children in difficulty need help but simply parking an adult next to a child is not the way forward. They need better training and serious intervention.
“We’re instilling in them the idea of dependency. The child thinks that instead of making the effort to write, he could ask the LSA to write for him. And then what happens when he’s 15 years of age?”
Asked whether he agreed on extending the obligatory school age to 18, teachers’ union president Kevin Bonello said that it was a positive thing in principle.
However, he stressed that merely extending the age without offering a holistic educational programme which catered for different abilities would be completely useless.
“We really need to offer a positive experience to all students – the academically-inclined as well as those with a more vocational or prac-tical bent.
“Those academically-inclined will continue into tertiary education regardless of the obligatory school age. It’s useless to add two more years to those others who spent 10 years in martyrdom.”
Education Spokesman Joe Cassar said that he needed to look into the matter more deeply before he could comment.