Students studying to become teachers and who will start their teaching practice next week have been left shocked and frustrated after a sudden, last-minute decision by the Department of Education to change their school placements. 

The Malta Independent is informed that a total of 16 students getting ready for their first ever period of teaching practice have had their classes shifted at the last minute, as the Education Department tries to make up for a shortage in primary school teachers. 

Speaking with a number of students who are reading for their Masters in Teaching and Learning at the University of Malta, they stressed to this newsroom the challenges that come with planning and preparing for a teaching practice: it requires a number of days of observations in order to prepare as best as possible. 

“While everyone feels stressed and anxious during this time, 16 students were approached by the Faculty of Education and informed about this drastic change. This means that all the content we have been working on in recent days will no longer be valid in any way possible. The teaching practice is five weeks long, therefore a significant amount of planning is required,” one of the MTL students said. 

Students expressed their frustration saying that “it is unfair that we were placed in a particular school, instructed to prepare for a particular class, and then just one week before our teaching practice, they decided to change everything.”  

The students also highlighted that some of the affected Heads of Schools were not even aware with this change. 

They also made reference to the claims made by the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) that some 150 primary classes were without teachers, saying that this has now affected student teachers as well.  

“It seems that the peripatetic teachers in some schools were told to keep teaching their peripatetic subjects as the student-teachers will teach the students who have no class teacher,” a student explained. 

Students said that this situation is “unacceptable and it is not the way to attract students to the teaching profession.” 

MTL students generally have two five-week periods of teaching practice as part of their two-year course: one period in the first year, and one in the second.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that no teaching practice placements were allowed throughout the last scholastic year, meaning that MTL students who entered the course last year will have both of their teaching practices during this scholastic year.

The first of those placements will kick off this month, while the second is scheduled to be in March.