Business leaders fret about the educational challenges facing a country that is increasingly dependent on the importation of highly skilled employees to fill their vacancies. Politicians seem to believe that the educational challenges can be resolved by putting more money into students’ pockets and giving them freebies. Educators argue that what is needed most is a bigger budget for the university and higher salaries for teachers and lecturers.
There is no shortage of short-term tactical initiatives to tackle the problem of educational underachievement that the country has long been suffering from. This problem is undoubtedly one of the factors that threaten the sustainability of Malta’s economic model.
In the 2023 Budget, the government raised students’ stipends and promised more laptops for secondary school students. Popular measures, no doubt. But this is a case of education policy makers just nibbling at the edges of educational underperformance.
Some institutions have taken initiatives to address the challenges, especially in those young people who have finished the phase of mandatory school attendance.
Junior College vice principal Roderick Vassallo last summer unveiled a revamped sixth form ‘flexi’ option aimed at those who might require more time to complete their post-secondary schooling. However, we recently learned that just one student has signed up for a four-year Junior College ‘flexi’ course.
It would not be fair to conclude that the Junior College’s initiative to accommodate a minority of students who find it hard to cope with intensive study for two years after secondary school was amateurish. When inertia prevails in the office of educational strategists, any tactical initiatives by college leaders to fill in the strategic thinking gap are understandable.
But however well-intentioned such tactical initiatives may be, they can never substitute the heavy lifting needed to identify the root causes of educational underachievement and devise a long-term strategy to address them.
For too long, under different administrations, the debate on ways to improve education achievement has often centred on fringe issues like the size of the stipend, parking facilities for university students, free transport and electronic freebies for pupils and students.
An honest soul-searching exercise to discover what is behind the country’s low educational achievement levels compared to other EU member states would probably identify major strategic and cultural flaws. These weaknesses cannot be addressed quickly and certainly not fast enough to win popular support in view of the short electoral cycle.
Veteran educators would come up with several valid observations and recommendations to address the problems. A return to more discipline in our schools and better-paid teachers to improve motivation would invariably be suggested. Academics would argue that they need more money for research in modern educational methodologies that are considered more successful than the present ones. A more strategic perspective would be taken by business leaders who eventually provide the jobs that students aspire to. They would argue that we need more students to follow the challenging options in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in order to support modern, value-adding economic activities.
They might observe that too much taxpayers’ money is being applied to support ‘soft option’ courses and that this eventually only leads to a wider skills gap.
A sound education system that helps students think and discuss while enabling them to achieve their career dreams is still a mirage for many youngsters.
It will continue to be so until policymakers develop long-term strategies that address the underlying causes of under-performance.
Nibbling at the edges of the problem will only prolong the inertia that prevents the country from undertaking a root and branch reform of our education system.