Painting a true picture of literacy standards

Issues in education are always more complex than they seem. To reduce the performance results in education, and especially those in literacy, to a league table produced by a US-based agency is to render a huge injustice to the work of hundreds of dedicated teachers and other professional staff in our schools. The league table results, because of the strait-jacket nature of the statistical exercise, do not reflect the actual results of first language literacy proficiency in
Malta.

Since the launch of the National Literacy Strategy for All in Malta and Gozo in 2014 there has been a concerted, national effort to create rich and effective literacy education opportunities in schools and beyond. The results from continuous assessments carried out by the schools, the bench-marking assessment at the end of the primary level and other national assessments, like the one for English held by Cambridge Assessment English of the University of Cambridge, have shown consistently steady and positive results in literacy. In the European Survey on Language Competences, SurveyLang, Maltese adolescents fared very well. Of course, the purpose of any assessment is to indicate also areas for improvement and for the consolidation of teaching and learning in the relevant areas.

Through its popular family bilingual literacy programme: Read with Me, for children of 0-3 years and their parents, the National Literacy Agency is reaching 2,000 children and their parents every month. Other popular programmes are the Magic of Stories programmes for children of 4 to 7 years and 7 to 9 years, and family literacy programmes for struggling readers. The Classroom Libraries programme has placed 100 attractive reading books in Maltese and English in every state school classroom of 4 to 7-year-olds.

From this year classrooms of 8 to 11-year-olds are receiving their books. It is a well-known fact that the availability of appealing readers has a positive impact on literacy achievement. In Secondary schools alternative programmes are run to motivate reluctant readers. Adult education classes which promote literacy in both Maltese and English, and also through the digital technologies, are offered by the Directorate for Lifelong Learning and NGOs like the Jesuit Paolo Freire Institute.

The reading gaps between high and low-achieving students, girls and boys, and different school types, are global phenomena which continue to provide challenges for Maltese educators too. In order to entice boys (and girls) to read and write through football, the Football Reading and Writing programme (FRWP) is offered in conjunction with the Malta Football Association in ten centres.

Regarding school types one needs to unwrap these results further as it has been shown repeatedly that in Malta the type of school may very much reflect the socio-economic and language background of the majority of students attending that particular school. Different schools in Malta have children with different first languages and this reflects the increasingly multilingual composition of our society.

The PIRLS 2016 report for Malta has indicated big strides in a number of areas related to literacy. Interestingly such results were not given the same prominence as the league table. Malta has registered a significant increase in home reading resources in the last five years, according to parents. This reflects the important efforts in recent years to ensure better provision of reading resources in the home and in the early years of schooling. One notes that it takes quite some time for the benefits of such an intervention to filter through the whole system and to manifest itself in increased performance and outcomes. The same significant increase was registered in home digital resources, according to parents. Early literacy activities and related children performance at entry in primary schools have also increased, according to parents.

The proportion of students with early literacy skills has increased too, according to heads of school. The percentage of Maltese school libraries having more than 500 book titles is significantly higher than the international average. Maltese parents have very positive views of their child’s education. Maltese students’ engagement in school is significantly above the international average. Students’ reading enjoyment has improved too. There are higher rates of book borrowing from public libraries through the Malta Libraries.

The PIRLS 2016 report for Malta indicated big strides in a number of areas related to literacy. Such results were not given the same prominence as the league table

A language policy for Malta

Work on A Language Policy in Education for Malta has been ongoing since 2014. The Language Policy for the Early Years in Malta and Gozo promotes balanced bilingualism. This is in full respect of the complex linguistic landscape of Malta as a bilingual nation, with Maltese and English being the languages of schooling. There is societal bilingualism in Malta and this is reflected in the different school sectors. Our Language Policy recommends effective teaching and learning strategies which may be applied in different contexts by well-informed and dedicated teachers. The strategies recommended in the Malta Language Policy, like for example: Language Mediation and Translanguaging, provide teachers with the means to take stock of the language situation in their classroom and to engage in practices which provide opportunities for all the children in their classroom to reach the required language objectives. These needs and opportunities may vary from one classroom to the other in view of the increasing linguistic diversity in our classrooms. Teachers need to continue to be supported, through professional development and resources, to exercise their agency and to implement such effective strategies.

In education, and especially in the field of literacy, there can be no quick-fix solutions based on reactions to newspaper headlines. Real progress in the long-term can only be achieved through focussed work in classrooms by well-trained and dedicated teachers. The role of the central authorities is to create the appropriate environment and to provide the required resources and the necessary professional development opportunities for teachers.

Evarist Bartolo is minister for education and employment