The public debate on the educational system is characterised by the little interest it attracts from stakeholders who are ultimately responsible for, or affected by, its quality. The system is failing at least one out of every five young people aged 18 to 24 who are defined as early school leavers.

Young people who leave secondary school with hardly any significant qualifications or skills are at a high risk of becoming unemployable from an early age. They often end up working in the black economy, where exploitation is common, or knocking on the doors of politicians to be given a low-paid and low-skilled job in the public sector.

The European Union has declared a war on low educational achievement. Malta has a target of reducing its early school leavers level to 10 per cent from the current 19.7 per cent. Nothing short of a miracle would see this target being met by 2020 as it has committed itself to do. Policymakers argue that the causes of low educational achievement are not solely attributable to weaknesses in the education system. This is, of course, a correct observation. It is also a sobering reality that low achievers usually come from disadvantaged backgrounds where poverty, unemployment and social deprivation prevail.

These factors are universally accepted as being among the main causes of early school leaving. But Malta is hardly in a worse position than other EU countries where unemployment, poverty and social deprivation are common and severe. The question is: why do so many of our students leave the educational system early, thus condemning themselves to poor career prospects at a time when employers are very demanding on the qualifications that job applicants should have?

Tackling the social inequality in society should be any democratic government’s top priority. Children whose parents are unemployed or just earning low wages, as well as those who live in a single parent household, or whose parents have themselves a low level of education are the most at risk of being caught in the poverty trap.

The quality of schools, especially at the primary level, is a critically important factor. International educational research shows that about 14 per cent of low educational achievement is attributable to school quality.

So school quality also has a bearing on a child’s chance of attaining acceptable levels of skills and qualifications when the time comes to join the workforce. Young pupils must attain basic literacy and numeracy skills in primary school. If they do not, they are destined to struggle in secondary school and usually leave the system on or before the statutory school-leaving age.

We need to move from headline grabbing educational tactics to a well-defined and comprehensive strategy that addresses the underlying causes of these obvious failures in the educational system.

Children in families that are most at risk of failing to achieve satisfactory levels of education need to be targeted for special support in primary and secondary schools. More resources must be made available to these children, including better trained teachers who specialise in educating children with challenging educational needs.

A project aimed at improving educational achievement will only succeed if it has strong political leadership, competent project management and a motivated teaching profession. So far, this project has barely taken off.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial