As a nationwide teachers’ strike is set to go ahead on Wednesday, Claire Caruana spoke to State school educators from all levels about their concerns and demands.
The upcoming teachers’ strike is about more than the demand for a pay rise for educators.
Speaking to this newspaper on condition of anonymity, State school teachers from primary, middle and secondary schools spoke about their daily struggles with a lack of adequate resources and an increase in teaching loads.
This year, a teacher shortage meant staff were overworked. A primary teacher described how she would often go a whole day without a break as she would spend her free time helping students who had been ill to catch up on missed lessons.
Coupled with increasing social problems faced by children, teachers often found themselves with little time to carry out correction work during school hours, often staying on after the children have left, or taking work home with them. Educators call this the “invisible hours of work”.
In terms of social problems, it had become common to have several students in a classroom lacking any support from home, they said.
“Kids come with so much baggage that before you can start teaching your subject you have to help them through their problems. Some come from violent backgrounds, others have seen things that no 13-year-old should ever see. Some don’t even have any food with them and come to school with a dirty uniform because no one at home bothered to wash it,” a secondary school teacher lamented.
Others, she added, needed teachers’ undivided attention as they did not get this elsewhere, and as a result, teachers were constantly forced to choose between delivering a lesson to make sure all subjects in the syllabus were covered, and putting children’s needs first.
Having children of mixed abilities placed in the same class is also a challenge, the teachers insisted, and lessons did not always address the needs of every student.
“The system seems to cater for the low achievers, which is good to a certain extent, but in the meantime nothing is pushing the students to try to achieve more. There isn’t much going on for the high achievers, so why should they bother?” another said.
Streaming was eliminated three years ago, but another primary teacher said she would rather have this in place as not only would she be able to better adapt the lessons to fit students’ needs but it would also be easier for students to grasp subjects if their needs were similar.
On school resources, the group of teachers who spoke to this newspaper, which also included Learning Support Assistants, insisted that while they had smartboards and all-in-one computers in all classes, other resources such as books and stationery were less available, and many educators had to fork out hundreds of euros a year to embellish their classrooms and hand out materials to their students.
“If you look at my classroom and you take away all of the things I paid for, only the computers remain, which are outdated and do not even work,” one of the teachers complained.
“At the start of your career you have to decide to either be hard on yourself in order to be a wonderful and amazing teacher who is on top of everything, sacrificing all aspects of your life in the process, or choose to let certain aspects slide in order to keep physically and mentally healthy. This choice shouldn’t have to exist,” another said.
MUT orders directives and strike while minister remains positive
The Malta Union of Teachers ordered a series of directives last month that will culminate in a strike on Wednesday, which is still on despite several meetings with the government.
Teachers in State and Church schools will not deliver any lessons on November 8 while Mcast and ITS lecturers will strike for an hour on the same day. The move comes after months of unsuccessful talks between the government and the union, which is seeking a 20 per cent pay increase and improved working conditions. Education Minister Evarist Bartolo has said on several occasions that the government wanted to adopt a conciliatory tone, adding that he was positive the meetings being held would yield results soon.