12% Of 10-Year-Old Maltese Students Get Hit Or Physically Bullied On A Weekly Basis
Bullying is not only a big problem in Malta; it’s also one which has failed to improve in the last couple of years. As part of an international study on both progress in literacy and prevalence of bullying in primary schools, some worrying results were unearthed.
The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement runs the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) every five years, and the results for 2016 were released earlier this week.
Over 3,500 10-year-old Maltese students from 95 different primary schools were interviewed, and 16% said they were made fun of a few times a week. Even more worringly, almost 12% said that they get hit on a weekly basis.
Since the last PIRLS in 2011, Malta has failed to register any sort of improvement. In fact, the scale score that measures lack of bullying is exactly the same for this latest edition, and is sitting at an unimpressive 9.8. That number is not only lower than the international average; it’s also dangerously close to the the highest ranking country on the list; Kazakhstan, which is sitting on an 11.2.
The report links findings on bullying to those of literacy rates, which also had less than desirable results for Malta. PIRLS define reading literacy according to a 1991 IEA study, saying it is “the ability to understand and use those written language forms required by society and/or valued by the individual.” Out of 50 participating countries on literacy rates, the Maltese Islands placed an embarrassing 40th, also placing it as the very worst performing among European countries.
The reading score of students in the Maltese language is not only lower than five years ago (from 457 down to 452), it’s also way lower than the international average score of 500. The reading attainment of Maltese students was on par with that of students from the United Arab Emirates.
In the report, the unfortunate relationship between bullying and literacy rates was further explained. Detailing the rise of cyberbullying in recent years, the report said that “like other bullying, cyber-bullying leads to low self-esteem, distress, and poor achievement.”
As expected, the vast international study focused on a wide variety of sectors, and Malta did not perform poorly in all of them. As far as the percentage of Maltese students who have a computer or tablet available to use for reading lessons, for example, our 49% was significantly higher than the international average of 43%.
Last weekend, MaltaToday reported how the Ministry of Education failed to publicly announce these findings. When asked why this was, the ministry failed to respond. They did comment on the findings though, saying bilingualism and population sizes were not taken into proper consideration. MaltaToday pointed out that, regardless of this, the findings still showed a significant drop in literacy rates from 2011, where the same conditions were technically still present.
What do you make of these findings? Let us know in the comments below.
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