The Malta Chamber on Saturday defended its recommendation for compulsory education to be extended by two years.
The chamber made its proposal in a national workforce strategy launched on Wednesday.
At the launch, Malta Chamber president Marisa Xuereb explained that the recommendation would make post-secondary education compulsory too, leaving students no option but to continue studying rather than leaving school empty-handed.
She said this would also help when these students realise that they had made a mistake to leave school so early and would come in useful if they opt to attend in-work courses to increase the level of their education.
In a statement on Saturday, the chamber said that remarkably, two unions representing teachers and educators came out strongly against the proposal, "evidently without having read the 50-page document available on its (the chamber's) website".
This document, it pointed out, highlighted the importance of employers investing in the upskilling of their employees and of working hand in hand with educational institutions to provide a more relevant and effective vocational educational experience.
One of the unions, it said, interpreted the proposal as businesses wanting to shrug off their responsibilities to train new workers for their immediate needs by expecting educational institutions to carry out training through the proposed extended compulsory school age.
One objection was that there are not enough teachers to cope with the increased demand the extension would entail.
This, the chamber said, indicated that teachers’ representatives were assuming that the additional two years had to be spent in secondary schools rather than in post-secondary schools that are constantly trying to attract more students.
It said that even if a lack of teachers is the main limiting factor, what was being done in other sectors needed to be addressed through the recruitment of the required resources from other countries.
“We cannot possibly constrain the educational attainment of future generations by the availability of teachers locally,” it said.
The chamber said that the most heart-breaking objection was that such an extension could possible decline tax revenues from 16- to 18-year-olds in the labour market.
“If students enter the labour market at the lowest ranks, without adequate qualifications, they have a high probability of remaining at the lower ranks for life because of their poor educational attainment. Coming from representatives of educators, it is appalling,” the chamber said.
Xuereb said that the national debate on the future of education needed to involve all who had a genuine interest in the prosperity and well-being of future generations.
“It needs to be free from short-sightedness and immediate self-serving interests…
“Whether employers, parents, educators, or policymakers, we are all disappointed by the current educational outcomes, and we all need to work together to make sure that the educational experience improves for everyone and that students do not rush out of schooling empty-handed. It is a collective duty,” Xuereb said.