The MUT said today that EU figures that showed Malta having a small number of primary school pupils per teacher had included teachers who do not actually have classes, but provide services in primary schools. In actual fact, it said, classroom sizes had not gone down.

The EU figures, issued yesterday, showed a significant drop in the average number of pupils per teacher in Malta's primary schools, but the MUUT said these figures failed to take into account new services offered in the schools by teachers engaged for the purpose.

The report showed that the number of pupils per teacher in Malta in 2009 was 10, half of what it was 10 years previously. The EU average is 15,

The MUT said that although, mathematically speaking, the Commission's figures were correct, the increased student services and the peripatetic service which were implemented in the last few years had contributed to the fall in average figures, it said.

"As most teachers and parents of students in primary schools can attest, class sizes, especially in the larger schools remain unchanged and the impression being given by sections of the media that most teachers are now having classes of nine students amounts to nothing but fantasy and an attempt to mislead the general public," the MUT said.