Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1175000
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 30 MAY 2018 9 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 9 OCTOBER 2019 9 LETTERS & EDITORIAL maltatoday MaltaToday, MediaToday Co. Ltd, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 MANAGING EDITOR: SAVIOUR BALZAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR: MATTHEW VELLA DEPUTY EDITOR: PAUL COCKS Tel: (356) 21 382741-3, 21 382745-6 • Fax: (356) 21 385075 Website: www.maltatoday.com.mt E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt LAST Saturday marked UNESCO World Teachers' Day: an occasion to celebrate the teaching profession world- wide, to take stock of its achievements, and to address some of the issues central for attracting and keeping the brightest minds to the profession. It is perhaps ironic, that this year's commemoration of World Teacher's Day' coincided with an ongoing national discussion about whether Malta is cur- rently facing a national shortage of pro- fessional teachers: as the Education Min- istry recently seemed to admit. Whether this is true on the ground in Maltese schools is as yet unclear. A few weeks ago, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said the government was consid- ering getting foreign teachers to plug the shortages in the educational system. Bartolo faced a backlash and the pro- posal was opposed by the Union of Pro- fessional Educators, one of two unions representing educators. Despite the Education Ministry's ap- parent admission of the problem, Fi- nance Minister Edwards Scicluna denied its existence in a subsequent interview on TVM's Extra. Asked about the pay packets of educa- tors and the problem of attracting people to the profession, Scicluna explained that Malta had a high teacher-to-student ratio when the overall picture is taken into consideration. "You won't hear this from the min- isters concerned but we do not have a teacher shortage… I cannot exclude that in some subjects and some schools there are shortages but the overall ratio of teachers to students is high," Scicluna said. Nonetheless, the Malta Union of Teachers paints a considerably bleaker picture, which goes well beyond the question of teacher shortages: "Locally, educators and students are suffering from wrong decisions and mistakes which are being taken by the education authorities. All newly recruited educators in state schools have not been provided with proper resources such as laptops. This has been caused by delays in the issuing of the procurement process leaving educators without the essential tools to provide the best educational experience to students," MUT President Marco Bonnici said in a statement issued for World Teacher's Day. It is also an undeniable fact that the classroom realities of today are a far cry from the traditional educational models of yesteryear. Teachers, LSEs and kinder- garten educators, in particular, are re- quired to be much more than simple 'ed- ucators imparting information'; on many cases they are also expected to double up as frontline social workers, sometimes in very difficult circumstances. Security in schools has also a major bone of contention: according to Bon- nici, "educational authorities have not yet […] allocated the required number of educators to carry out supervision before and after school hours. This seemingly cost-cutting exercise is leaving the most vulnerable students unsupervised. Apart from this, our appeal is once again being made for measures to increase proper se- curity in schools before similar accidents to the ones we had in the past years." Clearly, demands on educators have increased over the years, in response to a changing society that values inclusion. Dealing with children coming from var- ied backgrounds, each with their individ- ual life stories, aspirations and values, is no easy job. It requires an extraordinary level of commitment and concentration. The least that can be done is for their job to be appreciated in concrete terms. But, equally clearly, the increase in demands and expectations on teachers was not matched by an increase in appre- ciation, respect and monetary compensa- tion. In an age when the classroom re- sponsibility of any teacher can extend to identifying (and reporting) suspected cases of domestic abuse; acting as im- promptu 'psychologists' when faced with depression, or newly diagnosed disorders such as 'Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder' (which might, in years gone by, have been regarded as merely 'extreme naughtiness')…. whilst also remaining responsible for the already difficult job of educating younger generations… it would not be remiss to revisit teachers' basic employment conditions. Current wages do not match the level of responsibility teachers are expected to shoulder. The last collective agreement delivered improved pay packages, but evidently this is not enough. Within this context it is worth explor- ing the MUT's suggestion that the obliga- tory teaching set-up, from Kindergarten all the way to secondary school, be hived off into a separate agency, similar to Uni- versity and MCAST. In this way, wages could be pulled out of the stringent pub- lic sector wage scales and made to reflect the present-day realities. But there is also the issue of respect, and for this there is no monetary solu- tion. The lack of respect is more of a societal issue; though it would help if teachers received immediate backing when faced with problematic situations, and action is taken against perpetrators. Elsewhere, educators are burdened with report-writing that more often than not has no practical value. They some- times face flak from parents, for trying to discipline their children. They have to deal with endless frustration caused by uncooperative parents, limited resources, and lack of administrative backup. In view of all this, the meagre remuner- ation may also reflect the generally low esteem in which teachers are regarded. If so, however, this view does not take into account to full debt society owes to this profession. If we want a higher standard of educa- tion tomorrow, we should start by valu- ing educators more today. Mikiel Galea Yes, teachers need to be valued more