In education, something, somewhere is not working well

Thousands of children will be back in their classrooms today as government schools reopen after the summer holidays. New backpacks and trendy pencil cases will colour the day as anxious parents send their children off to school. Waiting for the students will be the educators, who will accompany them throughout a new year of learning.

This is the romantic back-to-school picture many prefer to see. But the classroom reality is vastly different. Children with no discipline at home will find it hard to adjust to a classroom environment where discipline is required to ensure everyone is safe and learning can be a meaningful experience. Educators will be expected to perform miracles—deliver a packed syllabus to a classroom with diverse needs within a framework of dwindling classroom support for children who require assistance.

But the new academic year also comes on the back of recently released statistics from the PISA test, which paint a worrying picture of Malta’s education system. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), assesses 15-year-olds’ ability to apply basic skills in reading, mathematics and science. Malta’s results were significantly below the OECD average across all three areas.

Significantly, the results also showed a lower-than-average share of high-performing students and a higher-than-average share of low performers. For a country aspiring to create and attract quality jobs, the PISA results are a setback. What it effectively shows is that after 11 years of compulsory primary and secondary schooling students are exiting school with mediocre results.

Unfortunately, we have heard little to nothing from the educational authorities. The only reaction was a comment to a journalist who asked. The reply was that the PISA findings are being studied. It’s important that reports such as PISA are thoroughly evaluated and the reasons for the findings understood. But it is more important to address the issues at their core—in the classroom.

For years, our education system has undergone one reform after another without any apparent evaluation as to whether the intended outcomes were achieved or not.

We removed trade schools to create comprehensive secondary schools that had to teach vocational subjects alongside traditional subjects—the vocational aspect took years to be introduced and initially was not available across all secondary schools. We are now floating the idea of reopening trade schools again.

We championed inclusion for children with a disability without properly evaluating whether what we ended up with was simple mainstreaming without meaningful classroom preparation and school adjustments. In some instances, children with severe mental disabilities, have ended up frustrated in classrooms that can never be adapted to their needs.

We removed mid-year exams and reduced the emphasis on annual exams, introducing ongoing assessments with erratic classroom implementation. We created a specialised school for the performing arts but left it without its most important educational tool—a theatre. We invested millions in tablets and laptops for students but left classrooms to swelter in stifling heat as if climate change is not a reality. We changed the curriculum more than once and each time, despite acknowledging how heavily loaded it is, left it chunky. We emphasise discipline but are scared to enforce punitive measures in an attempt to clamp down on school absenteeism.

It appears that each time a new minister or permanent secretary or director of education comes along, a new plan is hatched; a new reform is construed. And each time, an honest and transparent review of the previous reform is never done—or if it is done, it is never shared publicly and with the stakeholders who matter. This has resulted in reform fatigue among educators and school managers—the very people expected to deliver.

Unfortunately, the political rhetoric is stuck on tablets, laptops, artificial intelligence, long overdue school refurbishments, stipends and other platitudes. And all the while the very basics are ignored. As a consequence, Malta’s children are underachieving and exiting secondary school with difficulties to read, write, think critically and have, at the least, a basic grasp of maths and science.

Another concern is that too many children have a negative attitude towards schooling. The PISA study showed that 43% of students reported noise and disorder disrupted most or every science lesson (OECD average: 31%); 42% of students reported that their classmates do not listen to what the teacher says (OECD average: 29%). This is a question of discipline as much as it is of society’s attitude towards education.

Something, somewhere is not working well. It’s about time that the same politicians who regaled us with Vision 2050 realise that a good, comprehensive, inclusive education system is essential for democracy, individual fulfilment and achievement, and the economy.