A recent proposal by the Labour Party to altogether scrap homework in Maltese schools has been decried as populist by PN leader Bernard Grech, but in truth, it’s a critical initiative that will help children in the long term. 

How long is the average student’s workweek? Probably most of us don’t even know the answer, but it’s clear to see that most children are working just as much as adults and they are suffering because of it. 

Instead of preparing our children for lifelong learning and pursuit of interests that stretch far beyond academia, we’re making students work on the clock as long as professionals and we’re paying the price for it. 

Malta has one of the highest rates of early school leavers in the EU, with more than half of all students failing to get the required O-levels to go to sixth form. We’re some of the worst performers in key areas, like maths and reading. 

We’re also one of the highest spenders in the field, so throwing more money at the problem is not the answer. 

Most students start school at 8am and finish at roughly 3pm. After school, many students have countless extracurricular activities. Couple that with daily homework and it means that tonnes of young children are finishing their days by sometimes as late as 9pm.

That means that children are working anywhere between 35 hours and 60 hours every single week. It should be of no surprise that disengagement, anxiety and depression among younger people are on the rise when their lives are leaving them overstretched and burnt out. 

In Malta and across the globe there is an unquestioned acceptance that homework is essential in school life. However, countless studies have rubbished that assertion. 

A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) into high school students found that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance”.

Meanwhile, other studies focused on primary school students found that there is actually no academic benefit to any homework at all.

Interestingly, these studies correlate with another landmark on elite musicians, scientists and athletes, who it turns out to do most of their work for only about four hours per day.

There have been teachers and schools across the globe who have started implementing a no-homework policy, and while the data is slim, teachers have spoken glowingly about the change. 

Removing homework will hopefully free up children to do things that actually correlate with better student success, like family time, outside activities, reading and even sleeping early. 

It will likely start a radical change in mentality in children who do not view school as a chore but rather as a place of learning which does not impinge on personal growth outside of education. 

It’s a mentality that will spill over well into the workplace and hopefully start better addressing the worrying skill shortages and lack of lifelong learning in the country.

Of course, scrapping homework will mean absolutely nothing if it does not come with a holistic reform of the entire system. 

Most parents will tell you that homework is a great way of keeping track of their children’s progress during their academic journey. 

With a lack of continuous assessment and regular updates from teachers, parents are left effectively in the dark over the children’s education.

Meanwhile, Malta’s test-crazed system and over-bloated curriculum prioritises regurgitating information rather than understanding it. 

Unfortunately, our current system values the ability to sit down beyond school hours and tirelessly work to cram in the information for exams. Homework is a great tool in teaching that skill, but does little to nothing to help students truly understand the material.

The PN on its part, has announced several measures designed to address the educational system, but still falls a bit short of wholesale reform, something which would be an ambitious undertaking.

The government, on the other hand, had released a skills strategy in the months before the election, which did plan to address some issues but did not tackle education itself. The Labour Party, meanwhile, is yet to release its manifesto, so it is as yet unclear what it plans for the sector. 

What’s clear though is that scrapping homework could be the start. We’re already starting to accept the importance of a work-life balance for adults, why shouldn’t we extend that to the children?

Do you think that the current concept of homework needs to be re-assessed?