Education quality standards must remain a priority even if some transfer of teaching duties is necessary and appropriate due to the current pandemic, the University’s Faculty of Education said on Tuesday.

In a statement, it said it has taken note of a recent decision by the directorate of educational services to reallocate teachers with specific duties to a regular primary classroom in the coming days.

These teachers include peripatetic PSCD, PE, Science and Technology, Art, Drama and Music teachers and teachers engaged in the Let-Me-Learn and Digital Literacy Units, among others. 

Times of Malta reported on Sunday that although about 80 primary classes in state schools are still without a teacher, the government and the Malta Union of Teachers have agreed to issue a call for peripatetic teachers to fill the gaps.

'Reallocation should not be based on seniority'

The faculty said while it understands that the current situation calls for measures that ensure that every child receives full educational provisions, it does not approve of a system of reallocation based exclusively on seniority.

"The faculty strongly recommends that the directorate should first make sure that all those who will be given new duties are in fact qualified to teach in a generalist primary context," it said.

The faculty said it is also concerned that the time allocated to subject areas that are already inadequately provided for in the primary state sector will be further depleted by such a decision.

At times like these, the arts, in particular, could serve to provide children not only with intrinsic benefits but also strengthen creative thinking and affective and social bonds.

It said that by removing teachers from subjects such as music, PE or art, the directorate risked reinforcing the prejudice that these subjects are of a secondary importance. 

“Hundreds of pupils who have been severely damaged by the COVID-19 experience and look forward to lessons in the creative arts will now be deprived of them.

“Those children who could definitely benefit from a deeper understanding of their place in society during PSCD lessons will now learn that personal and social development is less important than other subjects.

“Unfortunately, a curricular shift of this sort could lead to the internalisation of an impoverished understanding of what it means to be human,” the faculty said.