Examiners are blaming the influence of social media and the internet for the low standards in Maltese among 16-year-olds sitting for the Secondary Education Certificate examination.

The issue was flagged in the annual report, which analysed the performance of the 3,885 candidates who sat for the May 2019 exam.

Though two-thirds obtained a grade high enough to further their studies in post-secondary institutions, examiners expressed concern that for the umpteenth year, papers were riddled with mistakes, especially when it came to spelling.

‘Mother’s Day Hospital’ instead of Mater Dei Hospital was cited as a typical example of the mistakes that cropped up.

“Candidates preparing themselves for the SEC Maltese exam must study and be able to restrain the influence of the internet. The language used on Facebook is not acceptable for this exam,” the examiners remarked.

An analysis of the overall performance shows that 2,414 candidates who sat for the exam obtained a grade from 1, the highest, to 5, which is the minimum acceptable for further studies to be undertaken in the subject. On the other hand, about a fifth of candidates (800) had such a poor result that their work could not even be classified. These trends are line with the exam results of 2018.

In their remarks, examiners complained that some candidates were failing to make a distinction between the spoken and written language to the point that some even resorted to foul language.

Mistakes were especially concentrated in the essays, in which a significant number did not separate the text into paragraphs while others would omit punctuation for the special Maltese letters by leaving out the dot on the c, g and z, and wrote h instead of ħ.

Apart from the internet, examiners noted that candidates had limited vocabulary and were trying to make amends by using English or Italian terms.  

In the grammar section no candidate obtained full marks, prompting the examiners to remark that this section seemed to be a hard nut to crack for the majority. Difficulties were encountered in the conjugation of verbs, which in turn was affecting the overall marks in the rest of the paper.   

Moreover, use of idiomatic expressions was very limited and candidates struggled to express themselves clearly.

Some of the mistakes flagged 

1. Use of English and Italian terms – Kienet ġurnata bellissima; Nixxemex fuq is-sand

2. Influence of English and Italian – il-ġisem tal-karozza, il-gwidatur tal-Ferrari

3. Orthographic - obvjament instead of ovvjament

4. Morphologic – farfetti instead of friefet

5. Syntax – għaddew kwarta instead of għaddiet kwarta

6. Lexicon – serrieq instead of ħalliel

7. Incorrect use of expressions – Fl-istess ħanut xtrajt ballun ġdida tal-Premier ġol-Ingilterra imma dak il-ballun ma kontx fifa quality u minħabba dak il-ballun kien ħmistax-il ewro u mhux mija u tletin.

 

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