It never ceases to amaze me how in Malta we seem to give more importance to issues relating to some minorities, but fail to focus intensely on one important minority: the thousands of young people who leave the education system with practically no skills and often unable to read and write. We must have our priorities badly twisted.
The OECD has just published the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Report. The lengthy PISA report has little good news for Malta, except that we agreed to participate again in this international survey after an absence of some years.
Malta ranked in the lowest of three categories having scored “a mean performance below the OECD average” in science, reading and mathematics.
I do not know how Malta Enterprise investment promoters can continue to promote the fallacy that Malta’s educated workforce is one of our best competitive advantages.
While Malta continues to spend much more than the OECD average on each student up to the age of 15, we rank lower than some of our main competitors including Ireland and Luxembourg. Most EU countries rank much higher than Malta. This is not good news for our future economic growth.
Yet the public debate on the implications of this depressing PISA report is almost non-existent.
Malta may no longer aspire to be the Singapore of the Mediterranean, at least in educational achievement
Some educationists gave their views on a local education reform document that proposes introducing vocational subjects in secondary schools. They generally showed concern about how well thought out is the My Journey strategic document that proposes reforms to be implemented in our public education system in the next few years.
Unfortunately, educationists – like many academics – speak in a clinical language that few common people understand.
On the other hand, politicians think that educational achievement and excellence can be achieved by giving student higher stipends and free computing tablets and encouraging educators to further their studies without linking formal qualifications with teaching ability as reflected in students’ success.
Parental involvement in a child’s education may be a tough challenge for some teachers but it certainly makes a difference in the achievement outcome that we expect.
A review of the long PISA report, as well as the sensible debate conducted in the quality media like The Economist, gives some indication how cut off our policy makers are from the substance of why some countries are failing to achieve high quality standards in education.
In Sweden, University of Gothenburg professor of pedagogy Jonas Linderoth says “an apology to teachers is required for the way researchers and academics have downgraded the teacher’s role for two decades, resulting in Sweden’s disastrous educational record”. Yet Sweden ranks well ahead of Malta in the PISA rankings.
A special report in The Economist is even more relevant to what is not happening in Malta.
“The top performers (in the PISA survey) treat teachers as professionals and teachers act that way as well. They have time to prepare lessons and learn from their peers.
“They tend to direct classroom instructions rather than be led by their pupils. Their advancement is determined by results, not by teachers” unions. There are high expectations of nearly every student and high standards, too.
According to The Economist, Argentina showed the most remarkable improvement in the PISA achievement table.
Their secret of success is focusing on teachers’ output. The education authorities in Argentina offered teachers something of a deal: higher salaries in exchange for taking their jobs more seriously.
The grip of unions in deciding promotions was loosened. They also made teacher training more rigorous and practical.
Malta may no longer aspire to be the Singapore of the Mediterranean, at least in educational achievement (Singapore was the top ranking country in the 2015 PISA survey). But we can at least emulate Estonia, another country that joined the EU quite recently and that is now considered a model for educational reform.
Despite our free education system from kindergarten to university, we cannot even boast of having such an equitable system when students coming from a disadvantaged background are among the least qualified in the EU.
The Economist special report is spot on when it says: “Where pupils are diverted from an academic track at an early age, whether towards a vocational school or a less rigorous class in the same school, the gap between rich and poor children tends to be wider”.
There will be those who knock down PISA because of some inevitable flaws. But PISA shows that ignorance is never bliss.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com