In 2015, children who completed their primary education last June will be 17 or 18 years old. Two thirds of those children get their education in state schools. Only half of the children who completed their primary education in state schools managed to pass the Junior Lyceum examination: 3,029 children completed their primary education in state schools in Malta. Only 1,531 (50.5%) passed the exam.
In Gozo, out of 265 who completed their primary education in state schools the number of those passed reached 154 (58%).
For many months now Prime Minister Gonzi has been spouting nice rhetoric about education being a necessary ingredient to achieve the goals the government set out in its 2015 vision to turn Malta into a centre of excellence.
Earlier this month Dr Gonzi said: “Vision 2015 will only happen if we carry out reforms wherever necessary... We cannot stare at problems without doing anything.”
Before the March 2008 election, he said: “We can really become centres of excellence in the EU and the Mediterranean region. We are on the right track and we need to continue building on what we have already achieved. We will create more and better jobs if we continue to attract the right investors and invest in skills and human resources. This is why education is the main focus point of our 2015 vision.”
Nearly half the children leaving state primary schools are not acquiring the necessary skills to succeed in their secondary education, let alone to help themselves succeed in the new global economy of the 21st century and turn Malta into a centre of excellence.
The examination to enter Junior Lyceum is the only official benchmark we have at present to measure how our children are performing at the end of their primary education. If we look at the last exam held towards the end of the last school year, we will see that just over half of the children finishing their primary education in state schools in Malta and Gozo passed this exam.
The worst results were obtained in Cottonera. Out of 133 boys and girls who completed their primary education last year, only 38 (28.5%) got through their Junior Lyceum exam. In Kalkara, 46% of the children passed this exam, in Vittoriosa 29%, in Senglea 26%, while no child at all passed this exam in Cospicua. Other children being left behind by our education system in state primary schools at the same rate we find in Cottonera, including Xghajra (where only 11% passed), Qrendi (26% only passed) and Floriana where 28.5% of the children passed.
More than 70% of the children attending their final year in primary education in Cottonera last year failed their Junior Lyceum exam or did not even sit for it. This means that they are being allowed to fall behind as the first eight years of their schooling has not given them the necessary skills and competencies in at least Maltese, English and Mathematics on which to build a sound secondary education.
These children will probably continue to fall behind in their secondary education and will be among those who try to leave school as early as they can and will not continue studying after their 16th birthday. They will join the queue of our young people below the age of 25 who are unemployed, and three quarters of whom lack the basic skills that they need to find a job in today’s economy.
They will become not only unemployed, but worse still, unemployable.
Probably quite a number of these young people will turn to crime and the illegal economy to try and make a living. They will be socially excluded and will face severe difficulties as citizens. The dream of education for all, launched in Malta after the World War II, is till a distant dream for these children. Education for all was intended to reach all children and develop their personality and give them the necessary life-skills to succeed as citizens in society and at work. But so far our education system is still designed in a way that helps those who do not need school to succeed as they come from families that somehow or other manage to give their children the formation they need to get on in life. Our education system is still failing those who particularly need it if they are going to have the opportunity to succeed in life.
The poor results achieved in state primary schools in Cospicua, Senglea, Vittoriosa, Xghajra, Qrendi and Floriana show clearly how superficial are those who claim that it is enough to remove streaming and reduce the size of classes for more children to succeed. Things are much more complex. Poor results have been achieved as well in schools where they do not practice streaming as the classes are too small.
Achievement in education depends on a lot of factors, and all these factors have to be present for more children to succeed. Significant research shows that 70% of success in primary education depends on family background and support which means that if a primary school is to stand any chance of helping children from broken down families to succeed, it must be given the necessary resources to fulfil the role of the family as well as that of the school. So social workers, psychological and medical support systems are essential in today’s schools.
For schools to succeed where they are now failing, they need to have teachers who respect the culture of their children in class, and to shape an educational experience that respects their culture and is based on their active involvement. Teachers must be given all the necessary resources to be able to provide an educational experience that children enjoy. Schools must have head teachers who manage to inspire their teachers and work hand in hand with parents and with the communities that they operate in. Educators and parents must be actively involved in policy-making and implementation. Educators are there to educate children, and not to be turned into glorified bureaucrats filling one sheet after another.
For our kindergarten centres and primary schools to succeed there must be the total commitment of the Education Ministry and the whole government to move early childhood education to the top of the country’s agenda. Till that happens government will continue to leave thousands of children behind. Zones like those of Cottonera, where more than 70% of children did not even bother to sit or did not get through the Junior Lyceum exam, need to be considered emergency zones and integrated social, economic and cultural regeneration plans need to be designed and implemented to enable the children of these areas to succeed.
Otherwise, all other steps will be half-baked measures that will turn the nicest dreams and visions into nightmares.

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