The Ministry for Education has launched the National Curriculum Framework Review Board, with the aim of strengthening the educational system based on student's skills.
"A good, complete educational system, which looks at the individual, must ensure that it does not produce workers, but produces better people, people who have different skills, all of whom have potential," Minister for Education Clifton Grima said.
The system has started changing from one based on content, to a system based on results, known as Learning Outcomes, the government said.
The introduction of this system is the result of commitment and discussions that have been going on for years with the three sectors: the State, the Church and independent schools, together with the Malta Union of Teachers, who all agreed on the process of continuing the Learning Outcomes system, the government said.
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is the backbone of the national curriculum, the assessment of which serving as a measure of national indicators of where the students are in terms of knowledge, skills, and competences throughout their entire journey of compulsory learning, the government added.
The Learning Outcomes system entails that learning is no longer dictated from the syllabi but is based on all the skills a student can acquire.
The pedagogy and assessment will be designed on a continuous learning experience which is progressive for the student, rather than hurriedly trying to absorb the content of the syllabus.
The student will no longer be asked to memorize and write for an exam, but will be assessed on continuous assessment of projects, practical work, orals, and science experiments.
Thus far, the Learning Outcomes system has been introduced in the early years of Kinder I and Kinder II, the third and fourth year of primary school, and will now be continued in the fifth year of primary and the seventh and eighth years of secondary school this scholastic year.
It is expected to be introduced to the ninth, the tenth and the eleventh year of secondary school in the coming scholastic years, during the school years 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 respectively.
The students who are in the ninth year of secondary school this scholastic year will experience the Learning Outcomes system through a 'school-based assessment' of 30% spread over the tenth and eleventh years at 15% each year.
The school-based assessment and an exam worth 70% will be examined by MATSEC in April of the last year of compulsory school in Year 11.
The group of students who in the school year 2023/24 will be in the ninth year, will experience the Learning Outcomes through the ischool-based assessment over three years, i.e. 10% every year until the 11th year of the learning.
In the case of the set-up of the ischool-based assessment in the secondary years, which includes the type, when it will be done and which learning outcomes, will be determined by the teachers according to the respective subjects. In terms of the i-school-based assessment setup in the secondary school years (it terms of type, when it will take place and the learning outcomes), it will be determined by the teachers according to their respective subjects.
The role of the NCF review board is to provide strategic direction, create strategic priorities for the implementation of the NCF, offer solutions to problems that arise during implementation and to ensure effective communication with all interested parties.