Over the past few days, especially in the aftermath of the arrival of boats full of Somalis landing on our shores and the Prime Minister declaring that he is prepared to push back these new arrivals, the social media (Facebook in particular) was inundated with discussions and statements about what should and should not be done in such circumstances.
The Minister of Education, in what seemed a response to these messages, promised in a Facebook contribution to work with NGOs to kick-start an educational awareness programme in primary and secondary schools.
It would therefore be opportune here to highlight some of the recommendations that my colleagues and I highlighted some years ago in our report Education And Ethnic Minorities In Malta.
The first recommendation was the setting up of an office within the department for student services to be specifically responsible for monitoring the services provided by schools to students from ethnic minorities and/or other minority groups and providing schools with professional and practical support.
Teachers and school leaders are experiencing such a reality with no adequate training and preparation. We recommend that all senior management and teachers are provided with specific training in intercultural communication and skills to help them deal with this new reality, starting from those schools that are already receiving a sizable number of children from ethnic and other minority groups.
Textbooks and educational materials that teachers use in their lessons should reflect the new multicultural and multi-ethnic reality and recognise the richness and opportunities that such diversity brings with it. This exercise should be both an exercise to review texts in terms of ensuring correct, non-racist language and notions but also to ensure representation of different minorities in proposed texts.
The mentioned report noted a dangerous practice common in most schools, that the provisions for these children, particularly for those of irregular and refugee children, was that normally offered to children with impairments. We believe that these children need a different type of educational support. It would be a disservice if we were to label these children as disabled when their problems are of a totally different nature. This reaffirms the recommendation made earlier, of the need to provide adequate training to teachers and school leaders.
Ethnic minority children should possess a good command of Maltese and/or English languages as early as possible. We therefore recommend that schools hold intensive language courses for children (and parents) of minority groups. This should not be construed as some kind of remedial teaching but merely a focused deployment of second and/or foreign language teaching methodologies. When possible, schools should, with the help of embassies and other organisations, provide instruction in the mother tongue of the children attending the school.
Such support and provisions should start as early as possible. Schools, whether or not they presently have children of minorities, should deploy as early as possible curriculum programmes that promote positive values, help children cherish and celebrate diversity and acquire intercultural skills to deal with such diversity.
Finally, schools should provide a variety of support structures to ensure that all students, wherever they originate from, have a positive learning experience and feel prepared to face the challenges of a world with diversity as its trademark.
Colin Calleja is assistant lecturer in primary education at the University of Malta’s Faculty of Education