Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1475004
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 JULY 2022 13 OPINION All children have a gift and/ or a talent. Unfortunately not all schools allow children and their parents to discover this and not all schools nurture gifts and talent understand the developmental and learning needs of their chil- dren is more probable during the very early years whilst their child is attending nursery and/ or kindergarten. I now return to the issue of eq- uity. In my opinion and at this point I may only speculate due to insufficient data, at least avail- able to me, that the Maltese edu- cational system is disequalising. The attainment gap between private and state school pupils on school-leaving examinations suggests a discriminatory effect of the local education system. So what do I mean by dis-equal- ising? From experience of being around very young children I think that the majority of Mal- tese families value schooling and many of them have aspirations for their children to succeed in life at least more than they themselves did. I think that it is here that the dis-equalising pro- cess starts. This is also the point where the implications of our apparent- ly well-meaning actions might have unintended consequences. When at home many parents enjoy seeing their children play and/or playing with their chil- dren. They buy them books. They buy them paints. They fo- cus on providing their children with pleasurable experiences and immerse them in a joyful and meaningful environment of meaningful talk, letters, num- bers and symbols based on the interests of their children and presented in ways that help their children to think in different and diverse ways. They are not concerned if their children go to nursery and/or a kindergarten where they play all day. They know that the longer playful way is actually shorter and that it is more likely that their child will not be fed up with kindergarten by the time that they enter the formal education local primary school system at Year 1 aged 5! There are also parents who want their very young children to learn and do well at school. So they structure their chil- dren's lives around handouts of letters and numbers and expect their children to do even more so when at kindergarten. In my opinion the child who is allowed to play to his/her heart's content is more likely to achieve later on than the child who starts school too early. I think that all children have the potential to achieve what they are capable of, good at and better at before they start school; regardless of whether their de- velopment is typical or atypical. All children have a gift and/or a talent. Unfortunately not all schools allow children and their parents to discover this and not all schools nurture gifts and tal- ents. I speculate that at age 5 the gap between children in private and state education is not as wide even when taking into con- sideration, and adjusting for, so- cial class and pupil age. I even speculate that if our young children were to be test- ed scientifically at age 5 their attainment outcomes are likely not to be significantly dissimilar, on average, to other young chil- dren in other European coun- tries in terms of their basic skills and/or development. However, it seems that by age 14, if one considers international studies for achievement, and by age 16, if one considers school-leaving examinations, schooling has made a disequalising difference! Not only do we generally tend to fare badly in terms of the international league tables but it also seems that pupils in state schools are discriminat- ed against when compared to private school pupils at least at face value and when considering achievement as attainment. So assuming that I consider the gap in attainment between the out- comes achieved on school-leav- ing examinations associated with pupils in private schools and those in state schools as a reliable fact, because I am not entirely convinced about this, then this is likely to imply that headteachers as well as teachers in state schools are not as effec- tive as those in private schools. This ties in with the issue of ac- countability. Here I move from a sociological perspective and right bang into that of school ef- fectiveness research. However, is it fair to hold head- teachers in schools and teachers in classrooms accountable for the attainment of pupils in time rather than for the gains in out- come achieved by pupils over time? Is it fair for pupils to sit a school-leaving examination that as far as I know is not even sci- entifically constructed? Is it fair to hold teachers and headteach- ers accountable for the out- comes of their pupils especially given the breadth of our cur- riculum? What does 'accounta- bility' mean? When clearly the problem is systemic and flawed because of policy intervention rather than policy direction. Why do we not appropriately monitor pupils' outcomes in and over time in conjunction with the impact and influence of the contextual and process factors associated with top-down policy as this must be implemented by schools? Why do we not moni- tor the effects of policy whether direct, or latent, whether signif- icant or ineffectual but none- theless influential and the effect of such policy over time for the quality of processes in nested classrooms and consequently on pupils' attainment and subse- quent progress outcomes. My field of expertise lies in the area of early years educa- tional effectiveness. Now that my bias is laid bare please do not think that I am encouraging the education authorities and politicians in Malta to monitor the effectiveness of schools and teachers. What I do encourage, as I questioned above, is the monitoring of the effect of pol- icy in and over time for its cli- ents meaning children and their parents and for the people who deliver schooling meaning head teachers, teachers and parapro- fessionals. Children, parents, teachers and head teachers matter. So back to social justice and to the construct of equity in education as equality of access, provision, circumstance, partic- ipation and outcome. To conclude, how are politi- cians going to support and fos- ter educational structures that allow equality of opportunity to accede to quality provision? I suggest that they start with the early years and that they recog- nise that the education and care of our young children requires professional educators who val- ue children's right to play. Let us nip, at least partially, rigging and rationing from the very start of our educational system. How are politicians going to support and foster equality of circumstance and increase par- ticipation? Perhaps it is time to stop 'rationing' education and do away with school-leaving ex- aminations? Perhaps, everybody should have the right to proceed to post-secondary/sixth form/ vocational education. How are politicians going to support and foster equality of outcome? Ironically by focusing on the quality of structures and embed- ded processes and then, and I do admit that I am speculating: outcome and achievement will tend to fall in place apparently on its own.