After seven wasted years, great fears are being expressed that students of high ability and those of very low ability are bound to suffer because of undue concentration on the needs of one group or the other. It is being realised that mixed ability teaching creates great difficulties causing frustration to teachers as they see their attempts to make students advance at the same rate fail dismally.
There is evidence to prove that integration is doing nobody any good while teachers suffer in silence the resulting bad behaviour, arrogance, school refusal and even violence. In the circumstances the paucity of involvement in this current educational issue by the Faculty of Education and the Malta Union of Teachers is very disturbing.
Perhaps they will react to the survey of the left-wing University students organisation Pulse, whose bold recommendations for the abolition of mixed ability classes and the reintroduction of streaming and junior lyceums were very well received. I have no doubt that their clarion call will not fall on deaf ears.
An in-depth study on school performance carried out by the Institute of Education of the University of London had resulted in Indian secondary school students outclassing all other ethnic groups including British students. The report showed that Indian students were more likely to stay on in education after the age of 16, are better behaved and achieving better examination results.
Indian families hold education in high esteem and strive to settle in areas where grammar schools, synonymous with selective education, still survive. Of course this situation boosted the call for the reinstatement of the much maligned grammar schools.
In the late 1960s in England there was a massive movement in favour of comprehensive secondary schools which I had the opportunity to visit frequently including the special ones in Coventry and Leicester.
It is highly significant that in the UK, which for almost two centuries has greatly influenced local educational thought and practice, both the Conservative and Labour parties are now committed to a more selective system of education based on the old values of class teaching rather than group teaching, with a great emphasis on the core subjects such as English, mathematics, science, economics and information technology.
A few decades ago then British Labour Party leader Tony Blair, a grammar school product, repeatedly demanded higher standards and reminded the electorate that “equal opportunities for all students is not synonymous with equal education to all students”. He also urged local education authorities to retain the grammar schools.
Regrettably if mixed ability teaching persists the nation would in the long run suffer from this egalitarian heresy
Wearing sack-cloth and with an albatross around my neck after the collapse of the selective system in the early 1970s, I vowed never again to discuss our educational system. However, from time to time I find myself breaking this pledge. This may be prompted by a change of heart mainly because in the late 1960s I contributed substantially to the national debate on education, being massively aligned behind the MUT-backed movement for the elimination of streaming and the introduction of comprehensive education.
We had to admit that the complete scrapping of streaming by ability in State schools, where the majority of teachers were (and still are) in favour of some form of selection, was a dismal failure.
Although the concept of comprehensive schooling is theoretically sound and attractive, it cannot be allowed to cloud our vision that not all children are of equal ability and different attention.
The reformers who advocated mixed ability teaching a decade ago failed to assess properly the disastrous shambles of the 1970s when comprehensive education was introduced. The reintroduction of streaming and the junior lyceums in the early 1980s, which had been serving the nations well, were gaining in reputation and the mass exodus to non-State schools was contained. We also witnessed the retention of high-fliers and the children of highly motivated parents in State schools. We all know that schools function best when the whole spectrum of society is represented.
Undoubtedly, the architects who promised the Holy Grail of mixed ability teaching 10 years ago, are now finding it very unholy. The reintroduction of a selective system will serve the nation well; otherwise we run the risk of depriving a child who is clever, has ability and destined to become a leader in his field by bringing him down to the level of his companions, who equally deserve attention but would never achieve in a lifetime of effort what the other could do.
Regrettably if mixed ability teaching persists the nation would in the long run suffer from this egalitarian heresy.
At this stage while the school curriculum is being widely debated and, I understand, the Ministry of Education is having discussions with various academic bodies, I have a recommendation to make.
It is normally assumed that the higher reaches of the educational system, namely tertiary education, set the pace and direction that determine the standards and preferences of the preceding stages.
Requirements for entry to the University have to be taken into account when the curriculum for the primary and secondary schools is under review.
If the University opts for a shift of emphasis towards more or less utilitarianism, then this is normally reflected in the curriculum of the preceding stages of education.
It is pertinent to ask in such a situation the perennial question: is education in our schools to be regarded as a preparation for life or for some dream-like state which exists only in the mind?
Lino Bugeja is an associate of the Institute of Education-University of London.