Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1473504
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JULY 2022 8 INTERVIEW In a sense, our education system is 'rigged' Your recent article 'Education- al Apartheid in Malta' focused on the findings of an EU Com- mission report: namely, that 'students in state schools lag behind those attending the non- state sector by two years'. This is, as you say, a long-standing issue: so if the Commission re- port says nothing that is sub- stantially 'new'… why are peo- ple so surprised at its findings? The latest Commission re- port simply reiterates, in broad strokes, what has been reported several times in the press: anal- yses of international student assessments, and of local exam results, confirm an unaccept- able achievement gap between state, independent and church schools. To his credit, Evarist Bartolo, even when he was shadow min- ister, had lobbied for Malta to take part in these comparative studies (for example, PISA: Pro- gramme for International Stu- dent Assessment): saying that it was useless for government to make claims about how much Malta cared for education, when our achievements were not pegged to some kind of interna- tional standard. That was a political risk he took: some countries have per- formed consistently badly in such assessments, to the point that they refused to take part in them any further, given the po- litical fallout that ensued. Oth- ers – such as Germany – were surprised to do badly: scores in reading, math and science were lower than the EU average in the year 2000. This was mostly attributed to the fact that their system separates students early on into general and vocational tracks. The so-called 'PISA shock', in fact, led to a public outcry and a debate about education policy. It galvanised the country's media, prompted important reforms that included greater support to those who needed it most. The nub of my piece for the Times of Malta is: why is it that we do not have a similar 'PISA shock' locally? Is it because we have grown comfortable with a system that is divided into three sectors, with each constantly and consistently performing at different levels of achievement? Clearly, the discrepancy itself cannot be put down to finan- cial allocation to the education sector (Malta boasts the highest education expenditure in the EU). You seem to be suggesting that the problem is of a more 'systemic' nature. Could you elaborate? Yes, that is exactly what I and many of my colleagues have been saying: the problem is systemic. Let me unpack what I mean by that. It is understandable that parents make choices and de- cisions in line with what they consider to be the best interests of their children. We, the mid- dle class, are likely to send our kids to schools that have a good reputation; which we feel reflect our way of life; which bring mo- tivated learners together; and where teachers are accountable. We know how to play the game, and play it in such a way that our aspirations and interests are sat- isfied. For example: my wife and I placed our two children in a state primary school in our village: because it was convenient, free, and there was the kind of social mix in the classes that we were comfortable with. We also chose a state secondary school for our boys. Here, however, the experi- ence was far less positive: a gen- eralised counter-school culture; shoddy teaching by, embar- rassingly, teachers I had myself trained at University; bullying; lack of accountability to parents. We pulled them out at Form 3, when they sat for an exam to en- ter a small Church school. They recovered, and both went on to post-graduate studies and suc- cessful, if original, careers… But these hundreds of seem- ingly unrelated individual deci- sions have an effect on the way the education system shapes up. For every independent and church school that concentrates advantage by being selective (on the basis of fees, cultural capital, motivation, luck-of-the-draw, and so on), you will necessarily get schools that concentrate dis- advantage. As you will tend to get a pro- school culture in the former, there is a higher possibility of getting a counter-school culture in the latter. If independent and church schools (ironically, given the Pope's plea during his recent visit) actively or passively turn away children of migrants and refugees, or other groups that might not be pro-school initial- ly, then those kids will end up somewhere else; and that some- where else is the state school sector. In this sense, then, the system is rigged. Now here we need to be care- ful: this is in no way denying that school leaders mean well, that they do the best they can for students in their care. I am not accusing parents or schools for seeking their own interests. What I am saying is that we need to face up to the implications of our actions, even when we do not mean to do harm. And this is the realm of policy, which focus- es on patterns, on systems, and on the unintended consequenc- es of choices made in response to self-interest. You seem to me to be let- ting everybody of the hook, though... No. Ultimately there is respon- sibility. We have the data, we have robust (if competing) ex- planations for the emergent pat- terns. Unless public policy is just a matter of 'political spectacle', then it is our responsibility, as parents, educators, church lead- ers, politicians, to sit down to see what we're going to make of this situation. Of course, it needs to be ac- knowledged that this is a 'wick- ed problem': one characterised by ambiguity and uncertainty, generating conceptual difficul- ties and practical challenges, with efforts to solve one aspect breeding new problems. And yet, we also need to admit that 'not facing up to it' is not the answer. If the same patterns of gaps between groups were to be found in the health sector, that would be considered untenable. Why is it that such astounding achievement gaps are consid- RONALD G. SULTANA, Professor of Educational Sociology and Comparative Education at UoM, argues that Malta is paying a high price for its educational 'apartheid' culture Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt