A teachers’ union is claiming that the Education Ministry is backtracking on its plan to bring over foreign teachers in State schools to address shortages in subjects like Mathematics and IT.
Malta Union of Teachers President Marco Bonnici made this remark when asked if there had been any developments on the matter, in the wake of uproar by parents and teachers against such a proposal.
“We are informed that the ministry is not willing to seek such model without our backing,” Mr Bonnici said.
Asked if they had been given some sort of guarantee, he said no such commitment was made by the government.
“It seems that in wake of the feedback from parents, government is rethinking this proposal,” he added.
Mr Bonnici remarked that they had no indications that the government would be opting for such model.
“We have already expressed our objection to seek such an easy solution,” he said.
Times of Malta sought a reaction from the Education Ministry to Mr Bonnici’s remarks and asked whether its plan had been definitely ditched but no reply was given by the time of writing.
Umbrella organisation for educators
Mr Bonnici was asked on the matter during a news conference in which he floated a proposal to set up a new State organisation which would incorporate all educators from pre-primary to post-secondary level.
The union believes that such an entity would make it possible to negotiate better working conditions for its members and bring the “parity in esteem” between educators across all levels.
'Education Malta', as the MUT has suggested the entity should be called, would be modelled on other public sector entities like the Institute for Tourism Studies, the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology and the University of Malta.
These public sector entities are more flexible in terms of employment conditions, as they are not bound by “rigid” public service salary structures.
Teachers often cite uncompetitive wages as one of the main causes for the decline in the number of young people choosing a career in education.
The union will be explaining this idea to its members in the coming weeks.
Teacher shortage concerns
When it was pointed out to him that there were concerns that students could be missing out on certain subjects due to the shortage of teachers, he noted that the MUT was not informed that the situation had yet reached such a critical state.
Asked to elaborate further, he noted that the biggest issue was with Mathematics, whereby the union estimated that there was a shortage of about 15 teachers. Problems were also being encountered in the teaching of English and Information Technology, he added.
“Though educators are overloaded with lessons, there are no indications that there will be classes without teachers,” he remarked.
“On the other hand, this is happening to the detriment of pastoral care as teachers who had a reduced load of lessons to be able to provide guidance and counselling services, are having to sacrifice the latter in order to focus more on their main subject,” Mr Bonnici said.
The MUT President pointed out that they would be waiting for a number of weeks before pronouncing themselves on any shortcomings in the forthcoming scholastic year in State schools, which starts on Wednesday.