Malta’s Education Ministry Allays Teachers’ Inspection Concerns: We Want To Help You, Not Catch You Out
Malta’s Education Ministry has moved to allay concerns that it plans to ramp up its inspection of teachers, arguing that its external reviews are intended to assist teachers and not to breath down their necks.
“There is definitely no point in ‘catching out’ anyone,” an Education Ministry spokesperson told Lovin Malta. “External reviews want to work and assist teachers and not be unhelpful in the process. The benefit of external review is that teachers can get feedback from fellow educators.”
“This has to be done in a manageable, respectful and professional process and this is what has always taken place. External Reviews are not investigations but involve the evaluation of educational institutions vis-à-vis published standards, based on pedagogical practice and national policies.”
Three Bills currently being debated in Parliament envisages the formation of a Division of Education, composed of departments as determined by the Education Minister.
One of the Bills states that officers of this Division will “have the power to enter at any time, without prior notice, in any school, childcare centre, class or place of instruction, and inspect and report on the teaching and learning process, educational leadership, learning and assessment programmes, student well-being, the physical environment, and the observance of the conditions, standards, policies and regulations established and made by virtue of this Act.”
The Union of Professional Educators, Malta’s minority teachers’ union, has warned that this will see the government’s role in terms of monitoring educators evolve from a mainly advisory role to a more disciplinary one.
“It seems that the controlling and oppressive attitude of the Education Ministry towards educators is now reaching alarming proportions and found itself shamelessly expressed in the proposed Bill,” the union said.
Graham Sansone, head of the Union of Professional Educators
However, the Education Ministry has played down these concerns.
“External review has been something ongoing for the past years. There are no changes, and unannounced visits have been taking place for a number of years with the sole intention of sustaining school improvement through professional dialogue and growth,” the spokesperson said.
“The article, and the people who have fed this narrative, want to paint a picture where reviewers and teachers are on opposing side, with one sides trying to tarnish the work through over-reviewing and paperwork. This is absolutely not the case. We are very aware of such scenarios in other countries, and the Ministry has no intention of creating any nonsensical difficulties to teachers.”
Stock photo
The Ministry said that the Quality Assurance Department within the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education has been fulfilling the role of the education inspectorate for over a decade and that it enjoys a lot of respect by educators.
It cited a recent local study, carried out with the support of the Directorate for Research, Lifelong Learning and Innovation among schools which were externally reviewed in 2016/2017 and followed-up in 2017/2018.
“[The study] has revealed that educators are satisfied with the direct and/or indirect impact external reviews have on schools in general, and in particular, on the professional development of educators and on the quality of the experience provided in the classroom,” the ministry spokesperson said. “Our goal is to strengthen this.”
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