Some issues that are of vital importance for our future prosperity often fail to interest public opinion. They rarely stimulate a meaningful debate that can only result from a genuine soul-searching exercise by our political and social leaders. The quality of our education is one such issue.
Every investment needs to be measured in terms of results achieved- John Cassar White
The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement has published its findings on educational achievement in various countries for 2011. They measure the results in two studies: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies, and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Among other things, these studies measure the level of achievement of pupils in grade 4 of the educational system – roughly 10-year-olds nearing the end of primary education.
Sadly, the results for Maltese students are far from impressive. When researchers measured the achievement levels of students reading skills, Malta was placed in 35th place out of 45 countries. Our ranking was also labelled as “significantly lower than the centre point of the scale”. Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania and Hungry ranked higher than Malta.
The achievement of our young pupils was even more worrying in science. Malta placed in 40th place out of 50 countries. Countries like Iran, Georgia, Serbia and Kazakhstan placed higher than Malta.
Our students also lag behind in mathematical skills as they placed in 28th place in a league of 50 countries. Countries like Kazakhstan, Slovenia and Serbia all placed higher than Malta.
The reactions of the local media to these sobering findings were subdued. Our political leaders, as well as our business associations, felt that there was little to comment on these worrying results. This does not augur well for our aspirations for a knowledge-based economy.
I couldn’t resist comparing the attitude of our media to that of their counterparts in Ireland – a country struggling to kickstart the economy after five years of deep recession.
The Irish Independent carried a prominent article on the TIMSS and PIRLS findings with the heading We’re Failing to Prepare Pupils for Jobs of the Future.
The journalist wrote: “Irish 10-year-olds have been outperformed in science, and maths in international tests, prompting new concerns about how well the educational system is equipping students for jobs of the future.”
Yet Ireland ranked 10th out of 45 in reading, 17th of 50 in maths, and 22nd of 50 in science – a much better record than that of Malta. Lest we forget, Ireland is one of Malta’s most formidable competitors, especially in financial services.
Unlike our business leaders, Irish employers fret about the ‘average’ results achieved by Irish pupils. Tony Donohue, head of education policy with employers’ organisation IBEC, expressed concern at Ireland’s science ranking. He said: “Our performance, could, at best, be described as average and given our aspirations to be a knowledge-based economy, average is not good enough.”
As was to be expected from a politician, Irish Education Minister Ruairi Quinn “welcomed the above-average performance of Irish pupils”. But he added: “We cannot be complacent. Clearly we need to improve our teaching in maths and science in all levels.”
If only the leaders of our educational system tried to at least emulate the Irish minister; if only our business leaders were prepared to publicly express concern about the failures of our educational system; if only our educators engaged in a meaningful debate on the reasons behind these failures, we could start to see some light in the end of the dark tunnel of under-achievement.
It is clear that as long as we keep measuring our success in education by the amount of money we spend, by the number of new schools we open, or by the number of students following university and other post-secondary educational institutions, we will continue to delude ourselves that we are performing well.
Every investment needs to be measured in terms of results achieved. The European Commission has for quite some time been urging the Government to undertake a study to discover why despite an above-average expenditure on education we are still reaping mediocre results. I get the impression that the Commission is beginning to give up hope of convincing the Maltese educational authorise to undertake this painful exercise.
We are still in time to make up for past mistakes. We must, however, first acknowledge that our efforts to improve educational results are not focused enough on the real causes that undermine our future prosperity.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com