Private lessons should be regulated to ensure they abide by quality standards that apply to compulsory education, according to the head of the teachers’ union, Marco Bonnici. 

Regulating the practice would address the current “anything goes” situation, he said. It would ensure that only qualified teachers can teach and address issues brought about by online private lessons, he said.

Parents recently complained about the quality of online private lessons, with some teachers accepting over 40 students at one time.

This leaves students, who are already struggling with a subject, having to make an even bigger effort to keep up and concentrate due to the lack of individual attention that private lessons are meant to provide. 

Bonnici, president of the Malta Union of Teachers, noted: “While compulsory education is highly regulated, in the absence of a regulatory framework for private lessons, anyone, including non-teachers, can give private lessons. 

“As a professional organisation we have, in the past, requested a regulatory framework for private lessons but this was never considered by the authorities. On the other hand, private lessons by qualified teachers are similar to private practice carried out by a number of other professions, so it is surely not an issue.”

Questions were sent to the Education Ministry on the matter of regulation. 

Parents’ priorities

A recent survey showed that six out of 10 secondary school students in Malta attend private tuition. 

The certified quantitative research exercise ‒ commissioned by a Lithuanian tutoring company, Mokosi and completed by Esprimi in February ‒ was conducted among 500 parents of children aged four to 18. 

The findings showed that the main advantages of tutoring included the need to do extra work (47%) and individual attention (33%).

In terms of priorities, the majority of respondents (61%) wanted their children to be in smaller classes.

Yet, over half would have considered online lessons, with the highest level of interest being among 16- to 18-year-olds. The Facebook group Private Lessons around Malta and Gozo shows a mix of parents seeking in-person-only or one-on-one lessons close to their home while others specifically request online or recorded classes.

The survey findings also shed light on a “grey zone” in the tax system when it came to private lessons and indicated it was “not really regulated”.

‘Racket’

One secondary school teacher, who recently left the profession, said the issue of private lessons in Malta has always been “a racket”. She believes in the urgent need for regulation.

“The authorities need to step in and seriously look into the matter. It’s gone unchecked for too long and now has become so much worse,” she said.

She spoke about the Maltese culture of sending children to private lessons, even if their schoolteachers were perfectly capable of preparing the children for any upcoming exams.

The COVID pandemic brought with it the phenomenon of online teaching in 2020 and “the racket has become way worse”.

“How can it be called a ‘private’ lesson if a teacher needs to attend to huge online classes, which, sometimes, are held concomitantly with in-person classes?

"There is no way these children are getting more specialised attention than they would get in their school classroom where the number of students hovers around 20 nowadays. Also, online teaching is a huge challenge at the best of times, even with small numbers of students. One has no idea if the students are paying attention and what they’ve understood, which are immediately evident during in-person teaching,” she said.

Another teacher noted that the nature of the lesson played an important role. “It all depends on the way the lesson is structured and how much the students are engaged. Certainly, looking at a head talking on screen will not do the job with most teenage students,” he said. 

As for the students, one 17-year-old girl who attended online lessons in maths said: “Personally, I prefer physical lessons because I get less distracted by my phone and even family members talking in the background. Also, I believe that being in a class rather than in my bedroom helps me focus more.

“But I think it mainly depends on the teacher. Some online teachers make it work because they ask us to switch on our camera and constantly ask us questions but other private lessons I joined where we had the camera off felt like I was watching a video rather than attending an actual lesson.”

Another teenager said: “In my experience, online will never be as good as in real life. The teacher can’t correct you and redirect your focus through the screen like they can in real life. However, I still find myself learning a lot from online and getting really good notes, especially if the online session is one-on-one.”

Since the pandemic, there was an increase in online private lessons that impacted the quality of lessons when compared to face-to-face lessons. Photo: Shutterstock.com

Money matters

One mother said that although she was happy to pay for private lessons in subjects in which her son struggled, “it’s not fair that the teachers take advantage of the situation by over-packing their classes which, at the end of the day, means my son will fail his exams and us parents would have thrown away all that money”.

Graham Sansone, from the Union of Professional Educators, said that, since the pandemic, there was an increase in online private lessons that impacted the quality of lessons when compared to face-to-face lessons.

“This is due to the lack of investment in the educational sector. Teachers are seeking alternative means of financial stability and the element of greed kicks in… If, in the past, you could have six students, now you can have 60 all at once, doing the same task, at the same time and earning more money,” he said.

However, in most cases, he said “teachers are desperate to get hold of more money as their salary cannot keep up with the rate of inflation” despite the recent increase in salary that formed part of the sectoral agreement signed with the government earlier this year.