‘No SEC please, we’re failures’

There are 455 students in State secondary schools that this year didn't sit for a single SEC exam - 278 of them are boys and 177 are girls. This amounts to 15% of around 3,000 students that complete their secondary education every year. Thirteen years of schooling has left these 455 students unskilled, unqualified and unemployable. Last May, parliament was told that out of 6,966 persons unemployed at the end of March 2012, there were 5,771 (85%) who did not even have a SEC standard of education as they left school when they turned 16 or earlier, without succeeding in a SEC exam.

Seventy-three of the 455 who did not sit for a SEC exam are statemented as children with disabilities. The number of students in Church schools who did not sit for a SEC exam is 10. Six of them are children with disabilities. In independent schools, there were three who did not sit for a single SEC exam.

The 455 students are coming from these colleges: Kullegg San Gorg Preca: (83); Kullegg Santa Margerita: (72); Kullegg Santa Klara: (48); Kullegg San Nikola: (47); Kullegg San Injazju: (46); Kullegg San Benedittu: (40); Kullegg Ghawdex: (35); Kullegg Santa Tereza: (30); Kullegg San Tumas More: (29) and Kullegg Maria Regina: 25.

The 455 students are coming from these schools: Girls' School Hamrun: (57); Fortini Boys' Birgu: (37); Boys' School Gzira: (31); Girls' School Cospicua: (30); Boys' School Paola: (29); Boys' School Birkirkara: (29); Boys' School Kirkop: (29); Boys' School Mtarfa: (24); Girls' School Rabat: (23); Boys' School Zebbug: (23); Boys' School Rabat (Gozo): (22); Girls' School Mosta: (20); Boys' School Handaq: (20); Boys' School Marsa: (19) and Girls' School St Andrews': (17).

Even a superficial overview of these figures shows us that the problem of educational failure is not concentrated only in social disadvantaged areas caught in the poverty trap but is distributed on all the national territory. We must also focus on individual schools and support them to improve and make s difference to their students.

Children like these 455 who are allowed to fall behind are being deprived of their human rights. All the young people who come out of school unskilled and unqualified are the result of an unjust system that reinforces social inequality and economic waste.

We need to make secondary schools more relevant and meaningful for our adolescents. We need to change what we teach, and how we teach it.

We still have young people coming out of 13 years of schooling without learning how to read and when they turn up to work at a factory they are told to get the container with red, yellow or blue paint on it as they can only recognise the colours but not read the labels. We need to find ways of educating these young people and not simply give them a new school leaving certificate. We need to educate them in new ways and not simply certify them differently. We must give them the necessary skills that they will need in the real world and not simply a certificate that will be worthless.

Our schools must help our young people to learn how to learn, how to discover knowledge and how to do what they have learned: to learn by doing and to improve what they do by learning. We must heal the deep split that has always existed in our education system: the chasm between the vocational and academic streams. We must bring them together in one single broad educational river and all formal and informal learning, training and continuous professional development must flow together to improve what we learn and what we do.

We need to develop home-grown vocational education in our secondary schools where we can use the experience and know-how developed over the years by the Malta Qualifications Council, MCAST, the Institute of Tourism Studies and the University of Malta. Where local expertise is lacking, it makes sense to tap international institutions but the Ministry of Education has taken the wrong decision of ignoring local expertise and turning to BTEC exclusively, without even considering using the experience and knowledge gained by other countries in vocational education at secondary level.

The best education gives you the necessary skills to solve real problems and carry out the necessary tasks at home, in society and at work. The best education system is based on quality and equality. Children who are allowed to fall behind are being deprived of their human rights. All the young people who come out of school unskilled and unqualified are the result of an unjust system that reinforces social inequality and economic waste.

To succeed in the real world you need to know how to cope with pressure. Education for the real world needs to put pressure on students to succeed. But a good education system also provides students with the necessary support to help them succeed. We tend to put the wrong kind of pressure on our students and deny them the right kind of support.

The author is shadow minister for education.