A tracer study reveals that only 33% of government secondary school boys went on to study after Form 5 in 2008
James Debono Prospects remain bleak for students attending boys’ secondary schools – only a third of boys who finished their obligatory education in a government secondary school in 2008 school continued their studies after fifth form, a tracer report tabled in parliament last week shows.
The report coincides with a major education reform focusing on the transition from primary to secondary school, which will be announced by the end of the month, education minister Dolores Cristina has told MaltaToday.
Of the 1,094 boys and girls hailing from a state secondary school who participated in the tracer study, 647 did not continue their education after Form 5 – 241 of these students did not even find a job, despite their decision to stop studying.
The study shows that boys attending secondary schools are the least likely to continue their studies. Only 33% continued their education after Form 5 – and none of the school-leavers went to the Junior College Sixth Form.
The fate of secondary school students sharply contrasts with that of school-leavers from government junior lyceums, private and church schools.
While 88% of those attending junior lyceums and 96% of those attending church or private schools continued their studies, only 41% of those attending secondary schools did likewise.
The school with the lowest number of school-leavers (6.5%) in post-secondary education was Lorenzo Manchè, Floriana.
Those who found a job after Form 5 were mainly employed as shop assistants (22%), waiters (13%), labourers, construction workers or factory operators (7%).
The two main reasons for starting work after Form 5 was that the students did not sit for their O-levels, or because they had no interest in studying. But 12.6% of these had joined their family business.
And when asked what would have changed their mind on their decision to stop their studies, 69.7% could not even give a reason while 9% claimed they needed financial support.
Girls attending secondary schools fared better: 52% went on to continue their studies.
Overall, from government, private and church schools, 84% of girls went on to post-secondary education – as against 75% of boys. This represents a complete reversal of past trends: until 1997 girls always represented a minority of students who continued school after Form 5.
Major reform Education Minister Dolores Cristina said the tracer study – covering 94% of all fifth form students – has given an indication of trends. The minister says a major reform will be announced that is set to reduce the educational gap between state secondary schools and junior lyceums.
“The implementation of the Education Reform and the Transition from Primary to Secondary School which will be officially announced later this month, will continue to improve on the participation rate of students in higher education,” Cristina told MaltaToday.
Commenting on the report, education shadow minister Evarist Bartolo said the statistics “show that many students are still being let down in education… It is definitely not enough to boast about the number of students that continue studying after fifth form. We must also evaluate how many of them actually succeed and address the problem why too many are dropping out or failing.”
Bartolo thinks the way forward is to make schools less boring, by developing teaching and learning approaches and strategies to raise levels of motivation of both teachers and students. “We need to make schools more relevant for our young people in every way.”
Bartolo is also calling for support programmes to address the problems of failure, repetition and drop-outs, and save those who are presently lagging behind in the system from primary school to MCAST. “Finland has more special education teachers devoted to laggards than anyone else. A third of the students get one-on-one remedial lessons. In Singapore the bottom 20% of students stay after school to get extra classes.”
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