The education ministry will not implement recommendations that had been made by the Commissioner for Education, within the Ombudsman's Office, regarding a complaing made by two teachers.
On the 3rd of August 2023, the Ombudsman and the Commissioner for Education updated the Speaker of the House of Representatives in connection with a Final Opinion which had been laid on the Table of the House in April 2023.
Two sixth-form teachers employed at a church school filed a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman, saying that after teaching full-time at a church school for several years, their wage has remained at the level of supply graduate , "even though they effectively perform duties as regular teachers."
"Despite having been in full-time teaching at a church school for several years, they are facing an issue due to an anomaly in the employment/recruitment system in Government schools for post-secondary and higher-level teachers. Their salary, funded by the Government through the Education Division at the Ministry responsible for Education (in line with Malta's Agreement with the Holy See), remains pegged at the level of a supply graduate teacher, even though they effectively perform duties as regular teachers," the Commissioner had noted.
The Commissioner recommended that there should be a differentiation between calls for a teacher in post-secondary education, which do not require a permanent teacher warrant, and calls for the post of teacher in secondary education. He also recommended that the teachers should now receive a salary of a regular teacher and not a supply teacher.
The Office of the Ombudsman said it informed the Education Ministry about the Commissioner's final opinion on 2 February, and also sent a reminder a month later. Both the Ombudsman and the Commissioner also informed Prime Minister Robert Abela about this case on 28 March. Now, the Commissioner has updated the Speaker of the House about the case.
"In their letter of the 3rd of August 2023 the Ombudsman and the Commissioner for Education informed the Speaker that by letter dated 2nd June 2023, the Principal Permanent Secretary had informed the Ombudsman's Office that the Administration did not intend to implement the recommendations made in the Final Opinion dated 2nd February 2023. The Office of the Ombudsman responded to this letter," it said in a statement.
The letter sent by the Principal Permanent Secretary to the Ombudsman and Commissioner for Education, read that a meeting was held between the ministry and the Coordination and Implementation Division "to discuss the difficulties which prevent the acceptance of the recommendations presented in your final opinion."
Among other things, the Principal Permanent Secretary wrote that secondary/post-secondary teachers are grouped in one category in the pertinent sectoral agreement, that the call was issued for secondary/post-secondary teacher and a teacher requires a qualification in pedagogy, that the call was issued in this manner to allow for flexibility to employ post-secondary teachers in secondary schools if they become redundant. "With the developments taking place and planned for MCAST, it is envisaged that a good number of post-secondary teachers will become redundant in the next five years."
A number of other reasons were given for not accepting the Ombudsman's recommendations. The Principal Permanent Secretary recommended that the employing school tops up their salary by payhing the difference between the salary of a graduate supply teacher (paid by the ministry) and that of a regular teacher, and also that the complainants obtain a qualification in pedagogy which would render them eligible to a post as a regular teacher."
In its letter responding to the Permanent Secretary, the Ombudsman said: " The whole purpose of the exercise conducted by this Office was directed towards establishing whether or not an injustice was or is being suffered by the complainants because of the combination of two decisions attributable to the Administration: the decision (in 2008) requiring a full teaching (pedagogical) degree for a permanent teachers' warrant (which at law is not required for postsecondary level teaching), and the current practice (which must be followed by the private sector) of having a 'combined' call for teachers for both secondary and post-secondary levels and requiring a permanent teaching warrant for both. This Office's finding was in the affirmative. This finding is in no way contested in your letter aforementioned."
"The argument advanced in your letter about possible redundancies of postsecondary teachers is, with all due respect, somewhat spurious. The first of the two recommendations of the Final Opinion is clearly intended to be applicable ex nunc, and therefore without affecting calls and appointments already made. Surely it should be possible to anticipate and calculate future needs for the next five years in its limited post-secondary sector, and to make provision for the appropriate re-deployment of the teachers in the event of redundancies. This is not rocket science. It is also clear that individual post secondary educators teaching in certain schools, but not in others, should not be made to carry the burdens of shifts in trends, a situation which is endemic in the educational sector."
The Commissioner noted that the complainants are being made to carry a disproportionate burden for a situation not of their making. Moreover, Church Schools' sixth forms provide a valid service to the community, and the situation is already causing them to lose valid elements as sixth form teachers opt to move to greener pastures at Junior College and MCAST."
The Ombudsman and Commissioner also said that it is not possible for persons teaching certain subjects at post-secondary level to obtain a full pedagogical qualification in that subject (e.g. Latin, psychology, sociology, philosophy) as no such courses are available.