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4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 JULY 2023 NEWS JAMES DEBONO BASIC reading skills in 10-year- old students are considerably better for those coming from wealthier families, a global study that ranks Malta 31st among 57 countries reveals. The study also shows that stu- dents attending independent schools, where the prevalence of affluence is highest, outper- formed peers in church and State schools in basic reading skills. This information emerges from the recently published na- tional report on the PIRLS sur- vey - a comparative study of the reading attainment of 10-year- olds (Year 5) conducted in 2021. The global results were pub- lished in May. The Malta figures represent a remarkable change from the previous survey conducted in 2016, in which State and church school students had outper- formed those in independent schools. But the change can also be at- tributed to the language used to assess students. While in 2016 the test was conducted in Maltese, in 2021 students were given a choice between the two official languages – Maltese and English. Best reading scores for inde- pendent schools Overall Malta's mean read- ing score (515) was higher than the international average (500), which saw Malta rank 31st among the 57 participating countries. Reading attainment of Maltese students was comparable to stu- dents from New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, France, Ser- bia, Albania, Cyprus and Flem- ish speaking Belgium. But the report shows that stu- dents in independent private schools scored an average of 564, significantly higher than those in church schools (533), that in turn scored significant- ly higher than State school stu- dents (491). This means that while stu- dents from independent schools and church schools had a read- ing score that was higher than the international mean score, students in State schools were nine points below the interna- tional mean. Economic background impacts reading score The study also shows that reading attainment in Malta is strongly related to the students' economic background. Students who hail from eco- nomically affluent families per- form better in reading tasks than those who come from more dis- advantaged backgrounds. The mean reading scores of students coming from 'More affluent', 'Neither more affluent nor disadvantaged' and 'More disadvantaged' economic back- grounds were 521, 502 and 479 respectively. Overall, the mean reading scores of female students ex- ceeded those of males by 3.7 scale points in State schools, 4.7 scale points in church schools and 11.9 scale points in inde- pendent schools. In all countries, female stu- dents scored higher in reading literacy than males. In Malta, female students scored 6 scale points more than males but this gender gap is significantly smaller than the international average (18 scale points) Change in 'test' language Moreover, the mean reading score of Maltese students in the global study (515) was sig- nificantly higher than the mean reading score in 2016 (452) and in 2011 (457). The national report admits it is difficult to gauge the exact progress made by Maltese stu- dents in these 10 years because the language of the reading test was altered in each of the three cycles. Malta participated for the first time in the PIRLS survey in 2011. The reading literacy test was administered to Year 5 students, first in Maltese (as a benchmarking exercise) and then in English (as a main test). In 2016, the reading literacy test was administered solely as a main test in Maltese to Year 5 students and in 2021 the lan- guage of the test was chosen by the student. According to the national re- port this change in the language of the test had "a huge impact" on the students' reading attain- ment when clustered by school type. When comparing reading at- tainment between the PIRLS 2016 Maltese test and the PIRLS 2021 mixed language test, the mean reading scores of students attending State and church schools increased by 43 and 62 scale points respectively; while the mean reading scores of stu- dents attending independent schools increased significantly by 152 scale points. Independent schools more af- fluent In this study, schools where more than 25% of students hailed from economically afflu- ent homes and less than 25% of students hailed from econom- ically disadvantaged homes, were labelled as 'More Affluent.' The study showed that 77.8% of independent private schools (7 out of 9 schools), fall under this category. In contrast only 32% of church schools (8 out of 25 schools) and 33.3% of State schools (21 out of 63 schools) fall under this category. Schools where more than 25% of pupils hailed from econom- ically disadvantaged homes and less than 25% of students come from economically afflu- ent homes are labelled as 'More Disadvantaged'. While 15.9% of State schools (10 out of 63 schools) were clas- sified as "More Disadvantaged', none of Malta's church schools and independent schools fall under this category. This suggests that State schools take up most disadvan- taged students, which is natu- ral given that they are free and obliged to accept students irre- 10-year-olds from wealthier families have better reading skills