A worrying 55 per cent of adolescents sitting for the secondary education certificate exam are failing the six main subjects necessary to proceed to post-secondary education, according to Education Minister Evarist Bartolo.
“We are not at all satisfied. And it is not acceptable to encourage students not to work hard to achieve the desired results, telling them that they could go to Mcast instead. You need a good basis to succeed,” he said yesterday.
Addressing a joint press conference marking World Teachers’ Day, Mr Bartolo responded to concerns raised by Malta Union of Teachers president Kevin Bonello.
According to Mr Bonello, the poor success levels were due to students not being followed up beyond formal schooling.
In the UK, informal youth workers met young people in social situations outside school hours and buildings, he said.
There also needed to be a better link between informal and formal schooling because up to 70 per cent of child formation came from what children were exposed to at home and within their communities.
Mr Bartolo agreed with Mr Bonello that human resources were Malta’s most precious resource and said SEC exams had to be drafted differently to encompass other skills.
“We need a different, but not inferior, route for those who learn differently. They should be assessed in a different way.”
More professional flexibility was needed for educators to adapt their classrooms to their students’ needs. This included increased flexibility in curricula and syllabi.
The minister advocated the benefits of embedded learning, where subjects should be more practical and applied, as opposed to merely theoretical.
He added that the dictum of being “presumed innocent until proven guilty” seemed to be applied the other way round for teachers, who had to contend with students who had no respect for discipline and authority.
A working committee, Mr Bartolo said, was set up with the MUT so that efforts by heads of school are not absorbed by administrative and bureaucratic processes. They had to be allowed to focus on their schools’ curricula.
He added that a new education law would be drafted, following extensive consultations, to give heads more autonomy in managing their schools.
Greater investment was also needed in the education system, which currently sees 95 per cent of its allocated budget spent on salaries, leaving very little money for programmes, initiatives and resources.
World Teachers’ Day
Nationalist Party education spokesman Joe Cassar paid tribute to teachers and educators on World Teachers’ Day.
He said teachers’ work was crucial for the country’s social, cultural and economic development and Nationalist governments had always given recognition to the commitment of Maltese and Gozitan educators.
This could be seen in the several collective agreements that substantially improving their pay and conditions of work.