Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/627675
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 JANUARY 2016 4 News YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT Netflix? 'Frankly, we don't care' say Melita and GO maltatoday 46/%":t+"/6"3:t*446&t16#-*4)&%&7&3:8&%/&4%":"/%46/%": €1.40 Maths sucks! 649 fewer sit for 'O' level JAMES DEBONO FEWER students are sitting for their 'O' level exams in Maths, English and Maltese, which are compulsory for entry to the Jun- ior College and University of Malta. But the drop is sharpest in Mathematics, where the number of candidates decreased from 5,049 in 2014, to 4,375 in 2015. The number of Maths candi- dates sitting for their SEC (Sec- ondary Education Certificate) in 2013 stood at 5,038. Experts who spoke to Malta- Today attributed the drop to an increase in educational opportu- nities for 16-year-olds who do not require a pass in these exams. This large drop in registration for the Mathematics SEC exam does not appear to be explained by the demographic statistics for births in the years 1998-1999, when the majority of candidates sitting for this examination would have been born, an examination report by MATSEC states. In an indication that it is low achievers who are mostly opt- ing out of the SEC examination system, the sharpest decline was seen in the number of candidates sitting for Paper B, an easier op- tion chosen by the majority of candidates. While Paper A grades candi- dates from 1 to 5 (1 being high- est), Paper B grades from 4 to 7. In fact while students sitting for Paper A declined by 8%, students sitting for paper B declined by 17%. PGS 6-7 10 But customers on Facebook claim ISPs are throttling internet speeds at night University gave Catholic burial to Jehovah's Witness who gave body for medical research Family only learnt five months after Beryl Schembri's death that university had buried her in unmarked grave JURGEN BALZAN A woman who agreed to donate her body to the University of Malta's anatomy department was buried a few days after her death – against her express wish – without her family even being informed. Devout Jehovah's witness Beryl Schembri, who passed away on 13 May last year, had signed an agreement with the University of Malta for her body to be donated for anatomical research and study purposes. However six days after she died, the University of Malta decided to bury Schembri's body – most controversially, in an unmarked grave at the Addolorata Cemetery – without even informing her hus- band or any of their five children. One of her daughters, Melissa, only got to know in October, five months after her death, that her mother had been buried after calling the university to enquire whether she could see the body. "But when I called I got the shock of my life. I was told that I couldn't see the body because they had bur- ied her," Melissa Schembri said. "If I hadn't called, we would still be in the dark about my mother's burial," a visibly distraught Schem- bri adds. Schembri was told that the em- balming process had not been suc- cessful and the anatomy depart- ment unilaterally decided to bury Beryl Schem- bri's body. PAGE 4 YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY malta 46/%":t+"/6"3:t*446& €1.40 University gave Angelik's spiritual fraud debunked Church disowns Borg in-Nadur mystic YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT Gozo bomb attack Police look into target's business interests and public tenders 3 13 PGS 8-9 8BOUFENBOFBSOTèBNPOUIGPSQBSUUJNFGJOBODJBMBEWJTPSZKPCt-POEPO court orders his extradition to Malta to face fraud and misappropriation charges Spiteri appeals extradition on €7.4 million fraud ! Ministry for Justice, Culture and Local Government BUSINESS BREAKFAST THE EFFECTS OF THE JUSTICE REFORM ON MALTA'S COMPETITIVENESS The Ministry for Justice, Culture and Local Government will be organising a Business Breakfast discussing the Effects of the Justice Reform on Malta's Competitiveness. The Business Breakfast will give an opportunity to the business community to discuss the effects of the Justice Reform on Malta's Competitiveness. The Business Breakfast will be free of charge and will be held on Thursday 21 st January 2016 at 8:30 am. Attendance is strictly by invitation and businesses/firms interested in participating should either phone on 22013124 between 8:00 am and 1:00 pm or email on permsec.mjcl@gov.mt by not later than Monday 18 th January 2016, to be provided with further details. JAMES DEBONO CANDIDATES for an English 'O' level examination have impressed their examiners for a very wrong reason: their "low level of gram- matical accuracy". "That 16-year old students should be leaving school on completion of their secondary education with a poor command of English is a mat- ter of great concern," a report is- sued by the MATSEC examination board said. Praising candidates for gener- ally performing well in the oral component of the examination, a test report on the Secondary Edu- cation Certification (SEC) exam in English lamented their writing skills. "The candidates' incompetence in the use of the English language was clear in a piece of free writing, be it a paragraph, an essay or an answer to a question in their own words," the report says. According to the report, stand- ards in English can only be im- proved "through a great effort to instil in these young people an increased awareness of the impor- tance of English as an international language". Most importantly students should be encouraged to practise the language in all its forms and not regard it merely as a school subject. Among the grammatical short- comings identified in the report was the incorrect use of adverbs: 'oftenly', 'evently', and 'fastly' were some of the most commonly in- correct words given in an exercise on the use of adverbs. Marks were lost for grammatical errors across the whole range of writing tasks, despite the fact that candidates were specifically ad- vised to pay attention to grammar, spelling and punctuation. Grammar The high incidence of grammati- cal mistakes made it more than ev- ident that a substantial number of candidates had not mastered the basic rules, examiners said. The use of the tenses seemed to have been a major stumbling block, with candidates using the Past and Present Continuous and Past, and Present Perfect tenses when the use of the Present Simple or the Past Simple was called for. One example was "I had sent the selfie after I was putting on my blue tshirt". The correct use of the Present Perfect also seemed to pose a problem, with many can- didates failing to use it to express time up to the present and opting for the Past Simple instead. Another common mistake was the indiscriminate use of the Fu- ture 'will' and the Conditional 'would'. Another weakness appeared in the use of pronouns. Many showed an inability to distinguish between the Relative Pronouns 'who' and 'which', and in a few cases mis- takes were made in the use of the Personal Pronouns 'we', 'us', 'I', and 'me'. There were also many cases when candidates failed to use the non-sexist pronouns 'they' and 'them' to refer to an individual of either sex as, for example: "A stu- dent uses his computer on a daily basis" – rather than the non-sexist "their computer". Quite a good number of can- didates forfeited marks for poor spelling, and very few indeed pro- duced essays with flawless spell- ing: "The misspelling of function words, such as their/there, where/ were, it's/its, thought/taught, then/than continues to plague the candidates' writing." Moreover, a number of candi- dates just put an apostrophe before or after the plural 's' for no reason and omitted it when it was needed to denote possession. In a substantial number of es- says, difficulties with punctuation were evident. Candidates seemed unable to distinguish between a comma and a full stop and used them indiscriminately, while very few made use of the other punc- tuation marks. The haphazard use of the capital letter was common with capital letters used unneces- sarily in mid-sentence. In some cases the pronoun 'I' was written in the lower case. Only 4% achieved a grade A while 35% either failed or got a Grade 6 or 7, which is not accepted for en- try to Junior College. 'Oftenly', 'evently', and 'fastly' were some of the most commonly incorrect words given in an exercise on the use of adverbs MATSEC examiners label English 'O' level candidates 'incompetent' Candidates' incompetence in the use of the English language 'clear in a piece of free writing, be it a paragraph, an essay or an answer to a question in their own words' A number of candidates just put an apostrophe before or after the plural 's' for no reason and omitted it when it was needed Police union says officers losing extra duty cash MaltaToday offers the best read and best price THE Malta Police Association has warned that officers are losing thousands in revenue as their ex- tra duties are being transferred to private companies. The MPA said that police as of Friday will no longer be tasked with extra duties at the Naxxar electoral counting hall, a total loss of €100,000 in annual revenue for officers. Police were relieved of their ex- tra duties at social security depart- ments and at the Electoral Com- mission, and as of next week, at the fisheries, a revenue loss of around €200 a week. "Police officers are not allowed to work part-time jobs and can only gain extra income by performing extra duties," the MPA said. "Al- though police will now pay less income tax on extra duties, the truth is that income limitations for police officers are in fact increas- ing. This social injustice must be addressed immediately." The MPA also said police offic- ers are made to work 46 hours a week, despite only being paid for 40 hours. "Working hours should either be reduced to 40 hours as is the norm for Maltese workers, or else the government should revise its salary scale so that police offic- ers get paid for the full 46 hours." MALTATODAY will not be changing its selling price as the market last week was hit by yet another increase in the price of the independent press. Two other Sunday newspa- pers, The Sunday Times and The Malta Independent have jointly raised their price to €1.75. At €1.40, MaltaToday still of- fers the best story count of all Sunday newspapers and the best analyses, giving readers more value for money. Commenting on the decision not to change price, Managing Editor Saviour Balzan said: "We know that the print media is under pressure from the digital media, but the way forward is to offer readers better quality sto- ries, not an increase in the price. "We believe that at MaltaTo- day we continue to offer the best stories and analyses, thanks to our team of independent mind- ed journalists who are also very much issue-oriented. "We have taken a conscious decision not to make any price changes in 2016 and we believe our readers will appreciate our stand."