Measures for the education sector announced in the Budget on Monday were once again recycled from previous years, an issue that has repeatedly been flagged by educators, according to teachers’ union head Marco Bonnici.

In comments to Times of Malta, Bonnici said that the measures unveiled for the upcoming year were similar to those announced in the past. This, he said, suggested the government lacked a vision for the sector.

“The sector is a massive one and, yet, year after year, the same measures keep getting announced in the Budget speech,” Bonnici said.

This meant educators are rarely given any insight into the government’s vision for the sector. Measures on new schools and literacy programmes announced on Monday had already been mentioned last year, he noted.

Bonnici said the government’s work on the ground did not seem to be reflected in the Budget measures.

“For some reason, what is actually being done on the ground, changes being made and decisions taken, are rarely reflected in the Budget. This means that we have no direction,” Bonnici said.

“If a problem is being addressed, we need to know where and how,” Bonnici said.

On the shortage of teachers, the union head said that, despite the issue becoming more urgent, especially this year with the impact of the virus pandemic on the sector, the government has again failed to say how it will attract more people to the profession.

“We need to keep in mind that the situation before the pandemic was not rosy and, once all this is over, we will still have plenty of other issues that have yet to be dealt with,” Bonnici said.

Projections for the future of the education sector remain shrouded in secrecy, he said, despite the union repeatedly asking for the information.