The education reform that is currently being planned and discussed aims to remove examinations between primary and secondary schooling. The idea is to reduce the level of stress for 11-year-olds.

The concept behind the reform is to be praised, but the level of stress is not being raised because of the examinations. I think that without examinations we run the risk of a major collapse in the education system, similar to the one we had in the 1970s.

I believe that students have a lot of stress because too much is expected of them, mostly by their teachers. Schools are not coordinated enough. For example, why should a student who has eight or nine subjects have homework in six or seven of them for the following day?

This happens because teachers do not plan well and do not discuss between themselves. This results in students having to spend hours doing homework, left with little time for anything else.

It is not the exams that stress students; it is the lack of planning and coordination of their teachers.

Students have a right to their free time and parents do their utmost to provide them with entertainment such as sport, art, drama and music. Yet these attempts are often useless when children arrive home from school having loads of homework to do.

It is the teachers’ lack of planning that the education authorities should reform.

Maria Caruana

Mosta