The recent to-and-fro over how to examine competence in Maltese at SEC level is a dispiriting rerun of our society’s overarching weakness: our gravitation towards polar opposites. We seem to delight in defining ourselves not just by the groups we stick with but also, and possibly more passionately, by the groups we hate.

In education, this polarisation is especially tricky, as the various camps seek to muster support from individuals who are emotionally involved, like parents, or employers, or teachers, or children. Yes, I belong in one camp, so feel free to read the rest of this article with your critical radar switched to high alert. For my part, I’ll attempt to show you where I think some problems lie in relation to language learning, and then it’s up to you.

One thing’s for sure. The current government has facilitated a golden opportunity to address some key problems in our education system. It would be tragic if we – yet again – allowed our personal agendas to dictate whose side we’re going to be on. In education, we should simply be pulling together, because a good education helps build a solid society; and a broken society is just as useless to the high fliers as it is to everyone else.

If the current SEC exam hinders many children from adequately demonstrating their competence in language, then it must indeed be seriously reviewed to be more inclusive

Back to language learning. Language, like numeracy, is considered a core area of learning. It is intended to support a natural developmental process of language acquisition present in all human beings. Children need to develop language to express themselves, to articulate complex thoughts in both speech and writing, to fully engage with their society and the world. Eventually, they’ll need language (and numeracy) to move on to higher education, and to jobs.

So language is more like the toolkit we need to discover the world, and solve problems. It is indeed – as the Education Ministry insists – vital that no child be left without such a basic toolkit, whatever their ability or background or race. Thus far, I guess most readers would be in agreement.

Identifying the best way to equip everyone with this toolkit is more difficult to discern. It is here that we are failing. We have divided into (at least) two separate camps, and the resulting tit-for-tat is less constructive than it should be. It also means that whichever way it goes, the ‘other’ side will be dragged along unwillingly, will probably not be fully on board, and not fully cooperative. Once again, we will have ensured a struggling, not a whole­some learning environment, and a society limping towards language competence.

The two camps – there may be more, and I may be simplifying, but let’s stick to two key ones – are divided, broadly, over the end point, that is, the final quali­fying exams. I am, of course, oversimplifying, and there is obvious danger here, but bear with me.

One camp has tabled the idea of different Maltese exams to cater for different learning contexts. The result would be a splintering of the current SEC Maltese preparation course (roughly from Form 3 to Form 5) into one for Maltese as a ‘foreign’ language, one for the language ‘applied’, or one for everything else. So, at the end of Form 5, a 15- or 16-year-old would sit for one of these three exams to qualify their competence in Maltese.

The other camp has reacted to this move with the concern that it’s highly problematic to splinter a core subject so early on in its development and supported learning.

I belong to a camp which seems to reflect some of the linguistic principles that have been shown to underpin good practice in language learning. That’s not to say that this camp too doesn’t struggle with the details of how to unpack these principles in the classroom or for exams. However, it does have a clear understanding of how good language learning and teaching can support the development of language that takes place naturally in every human being.

One of the reasons this camp is worried about splintering the Maltese qualification at SEC level is that children will not yet have fully developed the core language skills in writing and speech, so trying to determine which child should take which exam can become an artificial – or worse, an unfair – exercise that ultimately pigeon-holes children for the rest of their life.

Even in the case of Maltese as a ‘foreign’ language, which should obviously be targeting ‘foreigners’, who is to say that a ‘foreign’ child cannot be so immersed in Maltese culture that they could easily take the ordinary SEC exam quite comfortably?

For what it’s worth, as a linguist, my main concern would be that if the current SEC exam hinders many children from adequately demonstrating their competence in language, then it must indeed be seriously reviewed to be more inclusive.

Critics of our current system point out that too much is crammed into the assessment of 15- and 16-year-olds. If anything, we should address this valid criticism, and reconsider what can be reasonably ex­pected of 15- and 16-year-olds in terms of language competence. This should be reflected in updated, well-resourced metho­dologies where teachers have enough freedom, and also, enough support, to adapt to different learning needs.

We have a habit of throwing the baby out with the bath water. One problematic system is not enough reason to ditch an entire ethos of core language development. This is not a case of falling for the ‘one-size-fits-all’ criticism.

Of course, that would be wrong. But here we are not talking about specific skills in particular subjects. Assessing language is different from assess­ing science or art, where different children will have different talents and competencies. We are talking about assessing competence of a core feature of all human beings, regardless of race, background or ability.

This need not exclude the possibility of also having an exam for Maltese as a ‘foreign’ or ‘applied’ language, but crucially, these – or any other designated form of Maltese – operate outside the SEC cohort of exams. We really should not be pushing children into such categories at too young an age. A youngster aged between 15 and 16 should only be establishing and qualifying for a core baseline of competence in language.

So there you have it. You now know which camp I’m in. Does that mean that I disagree with everything the ‘other’ camp is pushing for? Not at all, and I hope I’ve demonstrated that. It is right to push for a system that will be more inclusive. And I think very few would argue with that ethos, if they really understand how much being inclusive really strengthens a society.

But I also agree with those expressing reservations that the way to do this is by splitting the exam up before children have had a chance to establish core competence. This really risks thinning out our already stretched resources, because different syllabi will require different materials, classrooms, apps and so on. Oh, and the teachers might appreciate some training in what suddenly becomes specialised language teaching for foreigners, or applied language skills.

We could strengthen our language learning and teaching in Malta if we pool the resources we have. And the same could be said for the various stances we take. Nobody holds the holy grail of ideal answers, but between us, I’m sure we could pool the good ideas we have until we reshape them into something everyone should benefit from.

Sarah Grech is a linguist with teaching and research interests in language teaching, language identities and social variation in languages.