MUT President Marco Bonnici questioned a recent Eurydice report which stated that Malta has an average of one teacher for every eight students, saying that the reality is vastly different than that which is being presented.
Bonnici said that Eurydice functions by collecting the statistics from respective countries and reproducing it. “Who is providing Eurydice with these statistics as the reality is not even close. Our estimates put the figure to around 20 students per teacher.”
“There might be some classes with lower than 20 students but this is because of their small size as well as taking into consideration small Gozitan schools. The majority of classes are packed with students often being in breach of the minimum conditions for classroom space in schools.”
Bonnici on behalf of MUT also took aim at the state of St Albert the Great college stating that the rector is to blame for all the commotion occurring at the school “while bringing it down to its knees.”
“The rector’s hard head has forced 25% of the staff of the collage to resign, the scrapping of student support programmes and hundreds of lessons being missed. How can a student expecting to sit for his or her SEC examinations in a couple of months miss lessons on a constant basis?”
Bonnici claimed that both the Education Ministry and the Curia have abstained from taking any action, an indifference which he said is jeopardising the education of the students.
“We find ourselves in a never before seen situation where a mass exodus of teachers is happening. 20 teachers already resigned with more to follow and the rector is to blame for all of this. If it’s not for the remaining teachers who are supervising the children nothing would be done from the side of the management.”
Bonnici pleaded with the Ministry and the Curia to take action as soon as possible. Till now, the union said that it is still awaiting a reply from Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Education Minister Clifton Grima.
An update was also given by MUT with regards to the Education Act with them stating that urgent discussion is needed in the implementation of the act since it was passed through parliament before the pandemic.
With regards to the laptops provided to teachers in state schools, Bonnici said that around 2,500 teachers are still waiting for their work laptop since most of them do not have one, their laptops are not working properly or are making use of personal equipment.
“The ministry just received a consignment of 1,500 laptops and we will be meeting in the coming days to talk about their distribution. We are also asking when the next consignment will be coming in.”
Bonnici also confirmed that sectoral and collective agreements for church schools, MCAST, ITS and Junior Collage are being concluded while the ITS agreements are going to begin shortly.