The Malta Union of Teachers is today expected to issue directives to teachers in the Drama Unit to refrain from providing their services to any government school which employs drama teachers without a teachers’ warrant, and/or on a part-time basis.
The issue has been simmering quietly in the background ever since June 2006, when the Education Division entered into an informal agreement with a private drama school – Helen O’ Grady, an international franchise – to counter a shortage of drama teachers in government schools.
The classes are provided as part of a pilot project in two government schools – St Benedict’s School in Bormla and the Senglea Primary School – via private programmes sponsored by Vodafone Malta and the HSBC Cares For Children Fund, under the auspices of Gemma Mifsud Bonnici and the prime minister’s wife, Catherine Gonzi, respectively.
But the move immediately raised the hackles of the Drama Unit, which has long been requesting the authorities to increase its numbers, only to find that it has now been apparently bypassed in favour of an outsourced entity.
More recently, the issue assumed political implications when Labour’s education spokesman Carmelo Abela asked Education Minister Louis Galea in Parliament whether the agreements with HSBC and Vodafone signalled the beginning of the “privatisation” of government educational services, “whereby private entities decide who can and cannot teach in our schools”.
Contacted yesterday by this newspaper, MUT chairman John Bencini explained that strike action would only be taken if it transpires that the Education Division was indeed breaching its own regulations regarding the appointment of teachers: one of which specifies that in order to teach drama in government schools, one has to already be employed as a teacher within the department. 
“To be fair, the Division has always argued that the drama teachers in question had not been employed part-time, but had only been invited to give talks to the students,” Bencini said. “If this is the case, then the same thing has been happening since the days of Napoleon. We have nothing against people visiting schools to give the occasional, one-off talk. What we object to is when people who either don’t have a warrant, or who are not employed on a full-time basis, are engaged as teachers by government, and included in the official teachers’ roster.”
However, the Directorate for Educational Services has denied that any state school is currently employing individual teachers connected to a private drama company. A spokesperson for the directorate told MaltaToday that the issue revolves around a single project, sponsored by private entities, whereby students participate in drama sessions with the aim of improving spoken English.
No payment for such services has been effected by the Directorate for Educational Services or by the colleges or schools themselves. In addition, the Education Division claims that these sessions are held in the presence of the registered teacher who is responsible for the class.
“Students who participate in this project, which is part of the midweek project, are often students who need help in building self-confidence and self esteem,” the spokesperson said. “The students report that they are enjoying these sessions and teachers have noted progress in the students fluency of spoken English.”
Such extra-curricular activities do not replace teaching, the Division spokesperson insisted, but are complementary to the learning process.