Last week, the Malta Chamber launched its national workforce strategy, which included the proposal to extend compulsory education till the age of 18 from the current 16 years. It immediately brought reactions from various stakeholders and it is certainly a proposal that needs to be evaluated thoroughly.
The National Workforce Strategy itself needs a separate assessment and I will come back to it in a future contribution. However, the idea of extending compulsory education to the age of 18 has a number of implications that require a separate discussion.
I believe that there is a general agreement that it will be useless to extend compulsory education without reforming the education system in this country.
The additional two years should not just be an attempt to squeeze some more knowledge into the heads of our students. If that would not have worked for 11 years, why should it work with another two years?
In assessing such a proposal, we need to agree on how a child’s educational journey is to pan out over a period of 13 years instead of 11. We need to keep in mind that the primary aim of education is not to prepare students for a job but to equip the student with the required skills to become a responsible citizen.
If a student has the appropriate skills to become a responsible citizen, then one would also have the appropriate skills for a work environment. The utilitarian approach to education needs to stop because it has led to errors in the past and will cause further errors in the future. One specific area is the subjects that are taught at school and the curricula.
I do believe that extending compulsory education to the age of 18 is a positive move, but it will have zero impact if we do not reform our education system and if we do not involve all stakeholders in the debate
The example I like to bring up is related to my background, economics. I do not see the point of students 13 and 14 years of age being taught economics and accounting in the hope that we increase the supply of accountants. Asking a young person of that age to choose a career in today’s world is condemning one to a lifetime of frustrations and disappointments.
It is also for this reason that trade schools failed in the 1970s and 1980s. In that set-up, students were forced to choose a line of work, such as say tile-laying, at Year 8 or Year 9.
We can add two further years to compulsory education but the subjects that are to be taught in schools should be more generic subjects such as business studies or technology. We do not need 16-year-olds who know how to do a bank reconciliation but have no inkling of what the business world or the environment is all about.
Another consideration to make is the excessive importance we attach to examinations and certification. We do need to put it quite crudely, A diploma or a degree certificate is only proof that one has passed a set of examinations on specific dates. It is not a proof of knowledge acquired and much less of any skills learned. Those of us who work in the HR sector know this only too well. Moreover, we all know of persons who have knowledge and skills in certain areas, and they have few certificates to their name.
If we remain with the expectation that young children aged five and six pass examinations and that determines their progress in education, then we are barking up the wrong tree and extending compulsory education by a further two years would be just a waste of time.
I must also mention that we need to devote more time to the enhancement of knowledge of languages. First, the level of English in this country has deteriorated significantly.
Unfortunately, we have not upgraded the knowledge of Maltese in a commensurate way. Second, our country’s exposure to the rest of the world is such that we cannot have our young people not knowing how to speak international languages well when they reach adulthood.
The addition of two years to compulsory education will not have an impact on the students in the larger scheme of things. According to current rules, one reaches pensionable age at age 65. By the time today’s young people reach this age, pensionable age would have increased again; if for nothing else, it will be because life expectancy would have increased.
As such I do believe that extending compulsory education to the age of 18 is a positive move, but it will have zero impact if we do not reform our education system and if we do not involve all stakeholders in the debate.