The Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) and the Union of Professional Educators (UPE) both expressed a passionate desire to address the teacher shortage and improve the conditions of their members, all the while criticising each other.

They both fervently spoke about the importance of teachers, and how disappointed they are with the terrible conditions such a prestigious profession is being challenged with.

Despite their similar goals of improving the package for educators and campaigning for the profession to be treated with more respect, they are also heavily focused on fighting each other to gain and maintain the recognition of educators.

The Malta Independent on Sunday sat down with the president of UPE, Graham Sansone, and the president of MUT, Marco Bonnici, separately, to discuss the reason behind the shortage of teachers.

Initially, Sansone stated that there are “two major reasons” why people are not motivated to become teachers today. It is both a problem with our culture and the unattractive conditions that steer people away from considering a career in education.

Firstly, "culturally people out there look at educators in a bad light. There is no esteem for this profession. Because we finish school at 2.30pm, nobody recognises the work that teachers and educators do in the evening. They contact parents, prepare notes and resources. The work is continuous".

Secondly, "teachers are extremely busy at the moment because of the work that they have to do due to the reforms," he said.

Sansone said that reforms like the emergent curriculum, learning outcome frameworks (LOFs), secondary education applied curriculum (SEAC) and MATSEC reforms had been introduced “without proper consultation and minimal training to educators”.

"MUT accepted all the reforms put forward by the ministry, and it never fought for decent salaries, it never fought for a proper salary of a professional," he said.

"Today the market out there is so competitive that one cannot keep up," therefore, people are more inclined to find better job avenues that offer more money for a much less stressful job.

"We cannot compete with the market out there because of bad negotiations over the years under a union (MUT) which has been administratively failing its members year in, year out. This is why the UPE was formed, because in the last teachers’ agreement in December 2017, there was uproar among educators where they realised that they were being cheated over and over again."

Asked about the potential of salaries being increased as promised by both parties before the election, Sansone stated that the MUT is trying to increase salaries by removing educators from the public service and putting them into the public sector, under the name of Education Malta.

“This is obscene because it would allow in theory that you can increase salaries beyond the public service scales that there are. But with the obvious repercussion that commissions of work and the hours will change. They will not remain as we know them today. If school ended at 2.30pm now there's the possibility that all the times will change.”

"Not only the times, the conditions of work, the number of holidays and teachers in general, who do not know the details yet, are going to be angry when they hear this. But this is the only indication of a possible salary increase."

When asked whether there was an issue with the MTL (Masters in Teaching and Learning) course, he expressed how it is not necessarily the course or the difficulty of the course that discourages students to continue their careers in teaching, but it is the fact that “they are seeing their potential career develop in front of them and they are seeing that it is not viable”.

 

“The wise ones would obviously definitely choose to veer off in a different direction, so we have to instil hope into these young students that eventually there will be a time when the profession will be respected just like other professions."

Finally, the UPE will be going before an industrial tribunal to make its point and convince the ministry to complete the process of recognition for LSEs.

Its goal is to give LSEs a professional status warrant and expand professionalism within the sector by introducing the classroom LSE, for all types of students.

He expressed how “increasing teachers will affect the family, the whole structure at home and apart from that we increase on professionalism in the classrooms”.

Ultimately, UPE wants to reignite the spirit and energy of educators, while attracting more respect for the profession.

In a separate interview, Bonnici had this to say about the shortage of teachers.

He began by commenting on the positive impact of the MTL which boosted the professionalism of teachers. However, with that came a decrease in the number of students who applied to become teachers.

“When the masters came in, we were badly affected and today we're trying to slowly recover from it,” he stated.

He stressed the point that "today you can do whatever you want because you have many opportunities to choose from".

"Companies are snatching workers, and this is taking place from when they are students. If you had to compare, like with like, there's a high probability that the starting salary of the company will be higher than the starting salary of a teacher."

The whole package, compared to the one being offered by private companies from diverse industries, does not attract a person,” he said.

"If we're not going to do anything, to raise the salary, raise allowances and address the conditions of work, we're not going to manage to attract more youths."

He stressed the importance of offering teachers "a very good package" to compete with other companies and attract more people to this type of work.

"It worries me that young people are not pursuing a career in teaching. It also worries me when you have people within the profession who are planning to leave, because we will lose these teachers. The reason behind it is because they have experienced this type of work and they don't like it. They're aware that there are places where they will be better off than they are now."

There are people who are leaving after their first few years teaching. These did a first degree, they did the MTL, they became teachers, they experienced the life of a teacher, they didn't like it and now they're planning on leaving. Some have already left, he said.

Furthermore, when asked whether this could be seen as a cultural issue he responded by saying that today people are mainly concerned with instant gratification, this is something people are a lot more concerned with than before.

He said that today nobody is concerned with long-term development and a major factor has to do with inflation. People now more than ever are concerned with the immediate benefits of a job to live from day to day.

"If you talk to the young people who have entered teaching today, they do not look at the long-term outcome, they are concerned with today, tomorrow, maybe at most the following year."

Additionally, he expressed his disappointment with the disrespect shown towards teachers today.

He proposes that along with a competitive package there also needs to be “a strategy that increases respect because one of the things that we've lost in this sector is respect for the profession".

He further spoke about the importance of people trusting these professionals who are qualified. People should respect teachers and their professionalism, instead of trying to assume that they can do the job better than them.

Moreover, we asked about the negative effect the shortage of teachers has on teachers and students.

In response, he stated that "the workload has increased drastically, and it has increased at every level".

He explained that when a teacher leaves and there is no replacement, the workload of the previous teacher will be divided among the current staff. Therefore, their workload has increased.

He further explained that because of this teachers have no time for voluntary work or extracurricular activities for students.

"If the workload has increased to cater for the lack of teachers, then automatically they won't have time to do anything else.” As a result, students will struggle because they “will lose that service".

"These activities are going to suffer if we don't find a solution to incentivise and motivate more people to do this profession and for the current teachers to not leave."

Lastly, we asked him about the criticism that they have received about the reforms they had signed.

"If you do nothing you don't get criticised; if you do something you will get criticised," he responded.

"Nobody from the outside can appreciate the struggles involved in negotiating an agreement and the process of passing at least one condition."

"We have negotiated many agreements. We have negotiated about 14 deals. At the moment we're negotiating another four. Out of these 14, you don't hear anything, except for one, The Sectoral Agreement."

He called out the UPE for its criticisms by stating that "all the lies that have been said about that agreement were ridiculous".

He defended their agreements by arguing that you must look at the complete effect that this agreement has had over the five years. Focus on the facts, not the spin UPE has been spreading, he said.

"The facts are that this was an agreement that brought change. Change in the financials and the conditions. Can this be done better? Definitely, and it will improve and the negotiations of today are different from the negotiations of five years ago."

He further revealed that they are currently consulting members and are receiving great feedback which will be gathered in October. MUT’s hope is that by December it will begin negotiations for the next agreement.