While expressing concern about the education sector, Education Commissioner within the Office of the Ombudsman Charles Caruana Carabez described the current teacher shortage as not quite being at crisis point yet, but has decided to look into the realities of the situation.

The shortage of teachers has been a topic of concern for quite a while now, and so has the government's announcement that there might be a need to bring in foreign teachers, at least temporarily, to fill in the gaps

The Commissioner announced that, on his own personal initiative, he will begin collecting statistics from the education industry in order to create a clear picture of the current situation These statistics will involve speaking with, among other people, college principals as well as other academic staff, and will how many people would be underground the teaching courses, check - school by school - the teacher shortage situation, and look at what areas need to be plugged.

The Commissioner compared teaching to building a wall, in the sense that to build a wall you need to build it brick by brick, and if bricks are missing, it would be weaker.

He took note that problem areas appear to be in English, Maths and It.

As for the idea of foreign teachers, he said he has nothing against it, noting that Maltese students are accustomed to being taught by foreigners at, for example, university level, and also noted that foreign students have no problem being taught by Maltese teachers. "I would prefer a situation where we would have a foreign teacher, than a situation where there was no teacher."

He did say however, that there are certain provisos on the foreign teacher situation, adding that he expects government to hire graduates who speak English.

He would not go into the merits of what caused this situation, but does believe that a major reason could be working conditions, as wages do not reflect the workload. "Teaching is not just the hours one does in class. You also need to factor in preparation and correction times."

He also felt that assessment of the teachers themselves should be done periodically and not every week, as not all students learn at the same pace.

Asked whether the situation has reached crisis point, he said, not yet, but we are close to crisis point."

"If recruitment exercise does not work then we need to see what constitutes a crisis or not.  What percentage of the syllabus is not being covered due to this. School heads have a huge problem.  One thing they can do is hive off students from missing classes and allow them to join other classes.  There is a limit as classes are clearly defined by agreements in terms of how many there can be."

"I am undertaking this exercise because I want to find out the situation."

Asked whether the issue of shortages is having a real effect on education at the moment, he said he does not think so in terms of basic education.

He also spoke about, also on his personal initiative, going to look into the situation of bullying of refugee children.

"One thing that struck me the past year is, how come I have never received a single complaint about bullying from refugees? Don't think i'm led to believe they are not bullied as you would be wrong.  I am opening a process where I will either go and visit parents of refugee children, or bring a delegation here. Many of them don't know that the |Ombudsman exists or that there is an office that can protect them. They are poorest of the poor."

"I will try and ensure that these people will have a voice."