Mid-year exams in government schools will be discontinued from the next scholastic year and replaced by an assessment system which will yield an extra 50 hours of classroom time, the permanent secretary at the Education Ministry has announced.

Frank Fabri was speaking on TVM about the wide-ranging scope of the new agreement with the Malta Union of Teachers, details of which are still to be announced.

Mr Fabri said a key feature of the agreement was that all syllabi would be reviewed.

“What made sense 25 years ago may not necessarily be suitable now,” he said on TVAM.

Over the years teachers had complained that the syllabi were not being reviewed frequently and as the world changed, some were no longer relevant, he observed.

Therefore all syllabi would be reviewed to make them more relevant and allow teachers more time to focus on their teaching.

The agreement between the government and the MUT was signed on December 21 and also includes a pay rise for educators.

Mr Fabri said the new agreement features many innovations and will change the landscape of compulsory education in Malta.

“The ultimate aim is to raise respect for the teaching profession,” he said.

He said the agreement’s provisions included a timetable for implementation over a period of four years, and a task force would be set up to oversee implementation.

The agreement, he said, placed strong focus on ongoing training for teachers. Teachers would be expected to (voluntarily) undergo several hours of training, and once 360 hours were accumulated over six years, they could progress from one pay scale to another, saving two years on what was normally progression over eight years.  

Mr Fabri said other developments in the pipeline included new policies on homework and on inclusion. 

It would be explained, particularly to parents, that the best teachers were not necessarily those who gave most homework, he said. Exaggeration, even in homework, was not beneficial.

With regard to inclusion, he said that while much effort was made, and a lot was spent on inclusion, it appeared that not enough headway was being made.

Teachers will be informed in the coming days what the new agreement will mean for them.