Some children with disabilities removed during school exams

Some children with disabilities, who attend mainstream state schools, will be removed from their school environment and placed in specialised settings when exams begin on Monday – in breach of their rights, according to an NGO.

“Without any consultation with disability NGOs or the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability, the educational authorities have decided that, from Monday June 8, some students with disabilities will be removed from their mainstream school environment and required to participate in a three-week out-of-school learning programme in a segregated setting.

“To add insult to injury, their Learning Support Educators (LSEs) will remain at school and be assigned other duties,” said Marthese Mugliette, president of the Malta Federation of Organisations of Persons with Disability.

Last year, these children were asked to stay home during exams following a directive by the MUT.

However, this year no such directive is in place – and, once again, they are being pushed aside, she said, stressing that this was in breach of their human rights.

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), Malta is obliged to ensure an inclusive education system at all levels and to prevent the exclusion of persons with disabilities from free and quality primary and secondary education.

“Yet, as of June 2026, these fundamental rights continue to be disregarded by the Maltese authorities,” she said.

Mugliette said the federation firmly maintains that students with disabilities have the same rights as all other students. They are entitled to attend school and benefit from their educational programmes until the end of June, just as their peers do.

These students want to continue attending their schools, working towards the goals outlined in their Individual Education Plans (IEPs), and receiving support from their own LSEs – who were placed in the schools to support them.

The federation called on the education authorities to make inclusion their priority and to ensure that these students can continue their education in their chosen school environment for their full benefit and development.

Parents being pushed aside

This lack of consultation echoes a recent decision handed down by the Ombudsman’s Commissioner for Education, Vincent de Gaetano, which highlighted disregard for the views of parents of children with disabilities and the impact on inclusion.

The commissioner reviewed a complaint lodged in March by the mother of a 15-year-old boy attending his final year at Guardian Angel Secondary School. She sought information from the education authorities regarding her son’s transition to the Dun Manwel Attard School in Wardija.

She was informed that the only available option was a privately run programme known as Life Map, as the Wardija School was no longer accepting new students.

However, a government circular issued on May 11 later confirmed that the Wardija School would continue operating and that the intake process would resume.

In examining the case, the commissioner examined the operation of a specialised multidisciplinary board within the Directorate for Educational Services, responsible for determining admissions to specialised educational settings, including Wardija School and Life Map.

The board assesses referrals based on documentation, psycho-educational reports and consultations with school officials and inclusion professionals. The admissions process did not include direct consultation with parents. The investigation also established that parents were not granted an effective right of appeal against the board’s decisions.

The commissioner stressed the importance of parents as the primary educators of their children and noted that meaningful participation is essential in decisions concerning specialised educational placements.

He also expressed concern that the admissions procedures and criteria used by the board were not publicly available, limiting transparency and reducing parents’ ability to participate effectively in decisions affecting their children’s education.

The commissioner concluded that this procedural imbalance was unreasonable. He recommended that the admissions procedures and criteria for specialised schools be made publicly available. He also recommended administrative measures to ensure parents are directly consulted by the board and, where requested, allowed to participate in meetings concerning their child’s placement.

The commissioner also recommended the establishment of an internal administrative appeal procedure to ensure that parents are provided with an effective remedy when contesting decisions related to specialised educational placements.