Low educational achievement is a critical stumbling block in the country’s quest to upgrade its economy to make it more sustainable. Malta has scored poorly in the EU education achievement league in various indicators in the past two decades. The most notorious performance indicator is that of early school leavers. No one should be pleased about this notoriety. Employers and students’ parents have long urged the government to remedy the failures in our education system.
Education Minister Clifton Grima has just launched a new ‘strategy’ to reduce the rate of early school leaving. His proposals include a greater focus on reading skills, an option of exam papers in Maltese and an extension of free childcare to all children, no matter their parents’ employment status. The positive aspect of this strategy is the emphasis on improving reading skills and making childcare more accessible for all parents.
Still, the proposal to no longer make the use of English for most O-levels examinations mandatory is a critical mistake that amounts to no more than a further dumbing down of the education system. Politicians must stop manipulating education standards, especially in the context of a system of education that is already under-performing.
The strategy document aims to doaway with the requirement of the exclusive use of English in most O-level exams, deeming it “an unnecessary barrier to certification, particularly for weaker students and for students whose instruction has primarily been through Maltese”. This change is no more than a levelling down of standards and will create more social inequality as it normalises a class of students who struggle to communicate well in written and spoken English.
According to Eurostat, in 2019, English was the most commonly studied foreign language in the EU’s upper secondary general education level, with 96 per cent of students learning it. Malta has a flourishing industry of the teaching of English for students worldwide. Yet, the message the education authorities and their political masters are sending is that English is not important and is unnecessary for expressing oneself articulately in an increasingly cosmopolitan Maltese society.
Downgrading one of our two official languages is a disservice to young people who aspire to build a career where good written and spoken English is an essential prerequisite.
Education is too important to be left to politicians. Improving statistics may please politicians. But manipulating the system and dumbing down education standards will fail miserably when international comparative studies like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are conducted.
This strategy document would have proven the commitment of the government to lift the education system from the endemic mediocrity it has languished in for decades had it emphasised the recruitment, training and retraining of graduates to enable our younger generations to appreciate the importance of learning languages.
Improving students’ communication skills is not a sprint but a marathon that lasts a lifetime.
Contrary to what the strategy document claims, this aspect of the policy change will lead to the levelling down of education. It is an injustice to many young people who need help to improve their education achievement rather than being told that it is acceptable not to be competent in expressing themselves in good English.
Employers and parents of students should insist that the policy change in the use of English in exams must be reversed.