The coronavirus pandemic has impacted on the well-being of many, including the educators and families in the Maltese early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector (0-7 years), the Early Childhood Development Association of Malta said.

In a Facebook post, the association said that the field is facing various challenges because of this. “However, the pandemic has also brought about encouragement, creative efforts and new discourse to meet the needs and improve the quality of this sector in the Maltese islands. As the saying goes: necessity is the mother of invention.”

“A long-standing necessity is the professionalisation of the ECEC workforce in Malta. While there is increased international awareness about the value of high-quality early learning environments supported by a highly-qualified workforce, the Early Childhood Development Association of Malta is deeply concerned with the professionalisation of the ECEC workforce in the Maltese islands,” it said.

“Early childhood educators (working with zero to five-year-olds) - including those who graduate with a bachelor’s degree in ECEC (from the University of Malta) - are the lowest-paid educators in the field. If these educators opt to move on to a Masters level and decide to remain working in the 0-5 sector (many would love to) they will not get the pay that their colleagues who teach in primary schools with a Masters level get. The issue is that the present Education Act does not value the profession of educators working in the most critical years of a child’s life. This situation led to a 2020 Maltese ECEC workforce (0-5 years) without a permanent teacher’s warrant and the lowest-paid educators on the island. We feel that these conditions are unjust, and a hindrance to the early childhood teaching profession and the realisation of the right of all children in our society to have access to high-quality early childhood education and care provision.”

The association’s members insist that the new Education Act should recognise the value of the profession of all educators, including those in the early years sector working with 0-5-year-olds.

“A starting point for achieving this is to have a new Education Act that incorporates the possibility for in-service and pre-service early childhood educators within the 0-5 sector to advance their careers to a Masters level 7 and acquire a permanent warrant that leads to pay parity with other regular teachers in the compulsory sector. This would rectify the long-standing injustice and inequity within the Maltese teaching profession and up skill the workforce in ECEC,” the association said.

“It has been proven repeatedly that a highly qualified ECEC workforce is linked to better and more successful outcomes for children, who are the cornerstone of society. If our vision is to have a strong, prosperous and thriving society, at par with others in affluent countries, we need to invest in our workforce, generally within the realms of education and particularly those within the early years sector. Early childhood educators do an incredibly crucial and important job, and they need to be valued like all other teachers.”

“As we are on the verge of a new Education Act for the Maltese education system, the association trusts that this urgent call does not fall on deaf ears. It is hoped that one day the Maltese ECEC sector would proudly claim: We did not miss the boat in the new Education Act thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.”