The initiative taken to voice teachers’ opinions about the new educational reform is positive and will hopefully be given the necessary importance. There are many teachers who feel strongly about the subject and are willing to help and give their ideas to make this reform as effective as possible. They believe that the teachers are the main stakeholders in this reform because they will have to eventually implement it in the best possible way, keeping in mind the needs of the students. They are the bridge between theory and practice. This was reflected during the meeting Frank Fabri (Principal of St Theresa College) had with the teachers at Msida primary school. Teachers Darren Bonnici, Jeffrey Borg, Oswald Tanti Rigos and Rose Portelli brought forward these arguments, which may not necessarily reflect the head of school’s or the college’s opinion.

As teachers we find that the reform was needed and we fully support its implementation because it will definitely remove a lot of stress weighing down on students and parents. It is extremely worrying that the current educational system and the stress burden it entrusts create situations where students ask questions such as “Ma, tibqa’ thobbni jekk ma nghaddix?” (Mum, will you still love me if I do not pass exams?). With the correct implementation of the new educational reform such questions will not be asked anymore.

“Teachers claim that in the current system, the focus is on the core examinable subjects. They feel that as long as the current system prevails, they feel powerless and cannot do things any differently because in Year 6 high-stakes entrance examinations are still dominant.” (Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Ministry, 2008, p.9).

We take this further by saying that not only does the current system limit Year 6 teachers, but also as early as Year 4, extra-curricular activities are already carried out with caution and limit due to the importance set on the main curricular subjects.

Implementing this reform is in the best interest of the child, but to fulfill this, other aspects must also be taken into consideration:

• The syllabus content should be revised. Key topics should be identified and irrelevant or unimportant topics should be reduced. A good consultation with teachers would help to pinpoint the key topics and set aside areas which might have become irrelevant nowadays.

• The number of students in a class should be reduced to a maximum of 18. This will help the teacher to differentiate between the different student abilities. With the current class numbers, it is almost impossible for a teacher to take into consideration all the students’ needs and abilities, let alone spend a little time every day assessing and reflecting with, and about, each student.

• Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) should be given more opportunities to help the class teacher in reaching out to all children, and they should be given many more opportunities to advance in their profession with specialisations in the various areas. This will be increasing the possibility of good differentiation in each class.

• We are all in favour of giving our students “the best possible educational experience” (National Minimum Curriculum p.30) but for this to happen we need help. We believe that for the reform to work in an effective way the government should invest in more human resources. Employing a counsellor, psychologist and other specialised staff in each college is good, however not enough. Ideally every school should have a number of teacher/child assistants (according to the school’s population) to help out with differentiated teaching.

• More physical resources should be planned for and provided. Many smaller schools are at present finding it extremely hard to cater for students’ needs because financially, it is impossible for the school to provide these resources. With the new reform we have to be prepared to invest in resources, both in large schools, and in small ones.

The following are some quotes taken from The Sunday Times of Malta on 23 November, 2008 which support our arguments:

Prof. Carmel Borg, former Dean, Faculty of Education

“... the promoters of the document are prepared to not only engage in real and genuine dialogue with teachers and parents, but also to invest in the infrastructure of the schools and in the preparation of teachers and other stakeholders for this major development in our education system.”

Mr John Bencini, President, Malta Union of Teachers (MUT)

“Such changes can never be implemented effectively without a major overhaul of the traditional classroom set-up, population ratios and support services.”

Fr Dominic Scerri, Bishops’ delegate for Education

“Mixed ability teaching demands a different pedagogical strategy: differentiated teaching; setting or banding, especially in core subjects; strengthening of learning support; support of professionals such as educational psychologists, occupational therapists, etc.; different curricula for students of different inclinations and aptitudes; different assessments.”

Another important point to be given major importance in the process of implementation is parent training. Parents must be given the opportunity to attend meetings/lectures/ workshops about the new system and be trained in how to handle the children’s new methods of learning and to understand that a stress-free system doesn’t mean that the class is not being taught well.

The following are some points which the parents should be taught to help their children with their school life:

Children should study for life and not for an exam.

Parents must follow their children’s work even though the Junior Lyceum exam has been eliminated.

Parents must not pressure their children to get good grades and good ranks in class. They must help their children to love learning. (This point would be given a boost if even parents for instance, read and take interest in books.)

Ms Carmen Zammit, Commissioner for Children “Parents push their children and often expect them to achieve more than they are capable of. We need to reduce this stress.”

Parents must understand that their children might get different work, according to their abilities. This is done to cater for all the children’s needs and give each child what s/he is really capable of doing. “Ma hemm xejn aktar ingust milli taqsam kollox indaqs bejn nies li ma humiex indaqs” (...the most unjust thing to do is to split everything equally among people having different abilities) (Borg & Cardona, 2008)

Ms Zammit further points out that children are not given enough time to learn. They are “memorising subjects by heart, but when you ask them a question they just look at you.” From our experience we know that bright children who do well in non-memorising subjects, do not do so well in Social Studies and Religion. This is because they have too much information which they have to learn by heart. Another problem which does not help students and us as teachers is the lack of a proper Social Studies book. We end up giving our students loads of notes to copy from the board; this leaves us with very little time to explain, let alone develop a fun activity from which they would surely learn more.

The same can be said with regard to the Religion syllabus. In our opinion there are many chapters which are irrelevant for today. An example of this is the lack of the Nativity Story in Year 4, which apart from being of great importance for students’ religious formation is also very important as part of the academic religious knowledge each student should have. On the other hand you find other, less relevant, and less intersting topics which the students can do well without because of their lack of relevance to students’ lives. This occurs in most of the other year groups. In order to echo this Reform and the need for education for life, Religion and the Social Studies exams should be based on common sense and information relevant to life rather than quiz based questions.

“The National Minimum Curriculum provides enough space for schools to tackle the educational realities of their students. Because of this relative autonomy, the educational provision of schools can be two pronged: a basic educational package for everyone and specialised provision catering to the particular needs of specific students.” (NMC p.30)

The vastness of the syllabus especially that of Social Studies and Religion does not let us “cater to the particular needs of specific students”. A possible solution to this would be to plan all the topics and skills which we want to impart to students in the primary school, and then group them according to the year group and its bench mark: hence there would be a number of basic skills taught at Year 1, which would be reinforced and built upon in the subsequent years, thus creating a structure of knowledge rather than separate strands.

We decided to work on this article and discuss this reform because we feel that the reform has been developed in the best interest of the children. We want the reform to work successfully and it is us teachers who need to make it work. We need financial and human resources so that we can implement this reform successfully in our classrooms and only then will we really be able to say that we are working for all children to succeed.

References:

Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Ministry (2008). Transition from Primary to Secondary Schools in Malta: A Review [Executive Summary]. Floriana, Malta.

Borg, C & Cardona, M. (2008). Lorenzo Milani: L-Edukazzjoni u l-Gustizzja Socjali. Media Centre Print: Blata l-Bajda, Malta.

Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Ministry(1999). Creating the Future Together: National Minimum Curriculum. Floriana, Malta.

Grech. J, (2008, November 23). Proposed reform in the transition from primary to secondary schools: Reform welcome, more need. The Sunday Times.