Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/232206
7 News maltatoday, SUNDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2013 Stipends won't solve Malta's problem with 'low achievers' It's not the lack of ambition, but the social inequality in our education system that punishes children of low-educated people MATTHEW VELLA Prof. Carmel Borg: "Neither inherited intelligence nor lack of ambition can adequately explain these statistics" A worrying statistic showing that children of parents with a low level of education are not being encouraged to pursue higher education, will not be solved by throwing money at it, says Prof. Carmel Borg, formerly the dean of the Faculty of Education. Malta's unfortunate record, as re- Eurostat findings In the Eurostat survey, a low level of education was at most, the completion of secondary education; medium was defined as having completed upper secondary or A-level education; while a high level of education was considered to be tertiary or university education. Respondents were asked what the highest level of education attained by either the father or the mother was when they were aged 14. Despite university education being free of charge for Maltese nationals, the persistence of a low level of education was observed among half or more of the respondents only in Malta (73%), Portugal (68%), Luxembourg (52%), Spain and Italy (both 50%). The smallest proportions of low level of education were registered in Lithuania (10%), the Czech Republic and Sweden (both 11%). In 2011, for those with parents with a low level of education, there was a significant movement to a medium level of education in the Czech Republic (83%), Slovakia (78%) and Poland (75%). In Finland and the United Kingdom around a third of respondents had even moved to a high level of education. It should however be noted that the share of respondents with a low level of education was much higher among those whose parents had a low level of education (34%) than among those whose parents had a high level of education (3%). Also in line with the trend, there is strong persistence of a high level of education between generations. For adults with parents with a high level of education, more than three quarters of respondents had a high level of education themselves in Romania (82%), Ireland and Luxembourg (both 79%), Cyprus (78%), Belgium (76%) and Spain (75%). Fewer than 10% had a low level in nearly all member states. complete with segregationist and deficit-oriented policies; social policies that disempower rather than enable families and long-abandoned communities to emerge from a complex of reinforced paralysis, fatalism and desperation." The Maltese government pays out an average of €25 million a year in university and other tertiary-education stipends, which has seen close to 15,000 people graduate in the past five years. But the Eurostat statistics suggest that the promise of a university stipend does not necessarily entice people to pursue higher education. "Throwing money at statistics, simplistic conclusions and charitable acts will fail to adequately address social, cultural and economic reproduction," Borg says. "Stipends are useless in this regard. Many dreams, aspirations and ambitions are crushed long before students reach the concluding stages of formal education." mvella@mediatoday.com.mt COOKERY CARDS vealed in new statistics published by the EU's statistical arm Eurostat, shows it as the EU member with the highest persistence of a low level of education being passed on from one generation to the other. Adults aged 25-59 were asked about the level of education of their parents, and this was then compared with the respondents' level of education. In Malta, among respondents whose parents had a low level of education, 73% had a low level of education themselves, 17% had a medium level and 10% had attended university. Among respondents whose parents had a medium level of education, 43% had a low level of education, 29% a medium and 28% a high level of education. For respondents with parents with a high level of education, 26% had a low level of education themselves, 25% had a medium level and 50% went on to pursue higher education. In a nutshell, it reinforces a view of low-educated people inheriting an apparent 'lack of ambition' from their parents to pursue higher education, even though in Malta university education is subsidized and pays students a monthly stipend. Malta had the highest incidence in all the EU of low educated respondents – whose maximum achievement was a secondary level school certificate – whose parents had also a low level of education. But Prof. Carmel Borg said the Eurostat statistics confirmed his twodecade-long stance that schools had to be "reimagined" as sites of social justice. Borg says that people should consider these statistics not as a failure of people to be ambitious, but that education requires the active engagement of families, community and schools if this cycle of marginalisation is to be stopped. "Such statistics direct us to consider the possibility that educational processes promote active family, community and school engagement, aimed specifically at interrupting structural cycles of marginalisation," Borg says. He says that the reality of social contexts and locations – such as class – cannot be discounted as a factor in educational success, and says that "meritocracy" is a myth that "personalises and psychologises achievement by decoupling educational success and failure from social contexts and locations". Borg adds that in recent years, the economy has not provided equal aspirations, and that the educational system actively segregated low achievers from high achievers through the nowdefunct streaming system. "Neither inherited intelligence nor lack of ambition can adequately explain these statistics. We need to look deep into how students and their families have been actively marginalised by: an economy that failed to provide meaningful opportunities for all and, therefore, equal aspirations; an education system that has actively discriminated against traditionally marginalised students through a low-expectations regime that came Maltese Cookery & Helu English Maltese by ANTON B. 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