Educators and business leaders agree that proficiency in the use of English is continuously declining among students and young workers. Many can hardly make themselves understood when speaking what they believe is good English. This is not a good sign for many of our industries, including financial services and tourism.
While many countries, like Japan, South Korea and China, are acknowledging that the teaching of English as a foreign language is essential to their global economic strategy, in Malta we take our natural competitive advantages for granted. Businesses often attract foreign investment by claiming that practically all Maltese speak English well because it is one of our two official languages.
This constitutional fact does not, however, impress much if the reality is that young people joining the modern workplace struggle to be articulate when using English to communicate. It is, therefore, alarming that rather than giving our teachers more resources to teach the language in a more effective way, the education authorities have reduced the number of English language lessons for Form 4 students next year, despite the syllabus remaining unchanged.
What is even more unacceptable is that, apparently, the decision was made without proper consultation with teachers who claim that they got to know about it when it was too late. Education officers said they tried to challenge it but to no avail. This attitude has been pervasive in many incidents that characterised the knee-jerk initiatives when implementing tactical educational reforms.
Teachers who spoke to this newspaper were understandably alarmed by the decision that would stretch everyone to their limit. Equally frustrating is the fact that, evidently, educationists felt no need to consult with teachers on such an important issue. A spokesman for the Malta Union of Teachers says the change was a result of updates to the timetable system announced a few years ago.
One is more than justified to ask whether a proper assessment was made on the consequence of such a decision on the ability of students to improve their grasp of the English language. The Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry did well to condemn the decision to reduce the number of English lessons, saying it goes against any logic and should be revised with immediate effect.
The command-obey management strategy may be suitable for the armed forces but is certainly not conducive to good management in schools. In 2016, the National Commission for Further and Higher Education remarked that “the level of English has already demonstrably been experiencing a decline among the young in recent years”.
Reducing the number of English lessons will most certainly deprive young students from acquiring the skills they need to succeed in the workplace.
Our politicians and educationists need to abandon their wishful thinking mindset when launching education reforms. Depriving teachers and schools of resources will only multiply the serious weaknesses that already exist in our educational system. English deficiency is just one effect of shortsighted tactics possibly aimed at combatting the shortage of staff or to save money.
The debate that should be going on must be about what schools can do to ensure that students become more proficient in the use of English.