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Ethnic Gangs, Language Problems And Video Games: Education Commissioner’s Take On Problematic Pembroke School

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The Santa Clara secondary school in Pembroke has been thrust into the spotlight after a number of fights involving students, teachers and parents, some of which even ended in court. To understand the situation better, Lovin Malta spoke to Education Commissioner Charles Caruana Carabez, who decided to roll up his sleeves and look into the situation of the school himself a few months ago after parents flagged the situation on social media. But first, take a look at this firsthand testimony of a Santa Clara student.

“I have been going to this school for four years now and about to proceed to my fifth. My experience wasn’t the greatest either. I have seen many different fights and arguments between students, some of which ended up with students being badly injured. For example, I’ve seen students slammed against a metal garage door, and I’ve seen four chairs thrown at a student, [a fight which] ended up with lots of blood on the floor. Last year, some foreign girl was knocked out in the play yard outside.”

“And it’s scary to see ambulance and police come to a school so often. Personally, I have been bullied but when I went to report it, the educators said that they would stop the bully, but they didn’t. It just kept on going on for months, [until] at one point I decided that enough was enough and I personally messaged the bully and sorted things out, and now I don’t get bullied by him anymore.”

“Also phones and technology aren’t allowed in the school but I see kids using their phones during class. I didn’t expect to see this, seeing as the educators told us a few months ago that they will be doing “spot checks” for weapons and technology. However, they never got around to doing that.”

Santa Clara Secondary School Pembroke

Charles Caruana Carabez has been observing the school for a few months now and, while he is not at liberty to discuss the state of his ongoing investigation, he did tell this website that the school is facing a “cocktail of problems” to which there is no quick fix solution.

“No one could have predicted this situation, let alone train the staff how to handle it,” he said. “These are teachers who were used to kids pulling each others’ hair and stealing pencils…”

Several observers have suggested that the school’s woes are directly related to its multicultural nature. Indeed, out of 3,074 students in the various Santa Clara schools in Malta, 1,956 are Maltese and 1,118 are foreign, with Libya the most represented country among the expats.

Caruana Carabez said that students often congregate among other students of the same nationality, seeking solace among each other in a foreign country.

Schoo

The Pembroke school is an extremely multicultural one. (Stock photo)

“That’s the most benign aspect of gangs, but seeing as they’re young and immature, they’ll sometimes resort to aggression to establish their identity,” he said. “Also, many of these ethnic groups come from war-torn countries, such as Ukraine and Libya, so we could well be dealing with people who have been brutalised in their home countries. Their families will also have a simmering hatred for certain nationalities or factions and this will be part of the furniture of their households. The children will hear it and absorb it.”

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that some students at the school don’t even understand English.

“If I put you into a room for six hours and you cannot understand a word that is being said, wont you feel frustrated?”

Then there are the Maltese students, a group Caruana Carabez wryly described as “no angels either”.

“We must take into account the growing phenomenon of broken families, which means children are losing their sense of direction and their central points and require constant readjustment, all of which can foster a sense of resentment,” he said. “As Maltese, we also like to define ourselves by what we are not, therefore we don’t say ‘I’m Maltese because I’m X, Y and Z’ but ‘Im Maltese because I’m not Libyan’. The constituent elements of an explosion are all there.”

Violent Video Games Post

Caruana Carabez warned violent video games are partially to blame for violence among students

Moreover, Caruana Carabez warned violent games are kindling aggression in adolescents, a statement that was also recently made by Children Commissioner Pauline Miceli.

“Children are exposed to the internet from a very young age and they will experiment with everything,” he said. “The video games they play are often very violent, where people and dehumanised and become skittles to shoot down and where there’s this urge to assert yourself. Children will then extrapolate the virtual into the actual.”

The Commissioner warned against temptations to call for a quick-fix solution to the school’s problems.

“The management and educators weren’t prepared for this, but it would be pointless to blame the minister, the head of school or an other single person,” he said. “This is a a complex problem that will require a complex solution, and I believe that by the time we’ve overcome this, we’ll have experts in bullying who we will be able to send abroad to teach others. I don’t just want to tackle this but get to a rationalisation of the underlying problem.”

Cover photo: Google Maps

READ NEXT: Pembroke School Teacher Opens Up About What Maltese Educators Are Going Through

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]

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