The Malta Union of Teachers has objected to a reform in the end of primary school examination system, saying that it was not consulted about the changes.
On Thursday, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo announced that informal exams will now take place at the end of primary school instead of the current benchmark exams. The current format will be phased out by 2021.
In a statement on Friday, the MUT said the announcement came like a bolt out of the blue at the end of a scholastic year. The union said the government had never discussed the changes with it and the change was not part of any sectoral agreement the union had signed with the government.
It said there were two different currents within the ministry that are not moving in the same direction. Earlier this year, primary schools had started gradually introducing forms of continuous assessment methods, apart from exams. The system, which also includes the end of year benchmarks, would be fully in place by the 2021/22 scholastic year, when current Year 3 students will be in Year 6, the union said.
But the changes announced on Friday will remove the benchmark exam. This means that the current system would be radically changed before it is even fully implemented.
It is clear, MUT said, that this change in direction was being implemented without consideration, direction or consistency towards reforms that are still in implementation stage.
Furthermore, these changes are not in line with views of teachers or indeed with the National Curriculum Framework, which states that assessment by means of exams should take place in Year 6.
The ministry is also contradicting itself when a few days ago it embarked on a “crusade” so that students would not miss their Maltese and maths exams as a result of industrial action but has now decided to remove these exams at Year 6 level.
The union also said that the report presented by the ministry had been sitting on a shelf since June 2018. In fact, the changes mentioned in the report should have been implemented during the current scholastic year.
UPE statement
The Union of Professional Educators also said it was shocked by the change. While Bartolo told the media that he had consulted with all stakeholders, teachers were not consulted, the union said.
In fact, UPE has not seen the 25 proposals the minister said he had received. It said the ministry was employing cunning strategies to make changes that affect the workload of teachers right at the end of a scholastic year. This will lead to more stress for teachers, who area already overloaded, the union said. These cunning strategies are of no good to students and will not help attract more people into the teaching profession, it said.