Education officials have dismissed the low score in Maltese reading achieved by 10-year-olds in a major international study as not being representative of the real situation in Malta.
Recent results from the 2016 Progress in International Reading Study (PIRLS) ranked Malta in 40th place out of the 50 countries which participated.
The Maltese pupils were awarded a reading score of 452, which is lower than the 457 awarded on the PIRLS test in 2011 and below the international average score of 500.
In 2011, Maltese pupils were also tested on English reading, in which they achieved a score of 477. In that year, the overall Maltese ranking was 35th out of 45 countries.
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Charles Mifsud from the University of Malta Centre for Literacy and Gaetano Bugeja, director of the Education Ministry’s Learning and Assessment Programmes, told this newspaper that as the test was carried out in Maltese, it did not take into account the fact that for a good number of students, their strongest language was English.
“It was clear that we have a number of students, some 20 per cent, whose first language is English, with the study showing that most of these students come from Church or independent schools,” Mr Mifsud said.
The average score awarded to Malta was lower, he went on, because it was brought down by those whose first language is not Maltese.
He pointed out that pupils in independent schools were more likely to struggle with Maltese, so the study did not present an adequate picture of the literacy situation in all schools.
For the PIRLS study, students from 95 primary schools all over Malta were selected at random, with geographical representation being taken into consideration. Of the 3,647 students who participated, 2,033 attended State schools, while 1,245 students were selected from Church schools. Only 369 students came from independent schools.
“We need to look at the results critically and go beyond what we see, because at face value Malta’s ranking went down, but I don’t think we’re comparing like with like,” Mr Mifsud said, insisting it was not right to say the ranking was lower.
He added that other bilingual countries could opt to have the test in the two official languages, something that was not allowed in Malta, as it would make the sample of students too small to test.
Pressed to say whether, despite the bilingual situation in Malta, the result was being considered an alarming one, especially since both languages are a requirement for students who want to get into post-secondary institutions and university, Mr Mifsud reiterated that “the results are not indicating that the students did worse”.
“It is alarming because the world ranking went down but our situation did not change. The last time round we placed 35 out of 45 countries, this time round we came in at 40 out of 50 countries because of the issue with the test language,” he repeated.
Mr Bugeja pointed out that, as had been the case with other studies in the past, improvements to the school system would be effected to better address certain issues.
“We also need to keep in mind that we have a number of students who are not Maltese and so when tested in the language, they will surely struggle, even if there are efforts in place to help them learn the language,” Mr Bugeja said.
The pair also pointed out that the language situation in Malta and all over the world changes rapidly, with regular profiling required to assess the needs of the students, especially with the influx of foreigners in recent years.
Asked whether Malta would opt out of the next PIRLS in light of the claims that the result was not a true reflection of the national literacy situation, Mr Mifsud said that failure to take part in such studies could also raise concerns.
“With this sort of study we would rather look at all the components separately, since in some areas we remained the same, in others we noted improvements and others not so much.
“What we are interested in is the breakdown of result.”