Yet another educational experiment?

Over the last 38 years, there have been numerous changes in the educational sector as successive ministers have tried new things, sometimes based on sound advice, and sometimes (specifically during the Mintoff administration) based on political ideology.

With each change, another generation of students has been affected, which in turn often resulted in a complete shift in the course of their career path.

In my case, I remember that there was the abrupt change in the length of the course at 6th Form with the introduction of the pupil-worker scheme. Suddenly, instead of two years it was made into three years, which led to my decision not to go to 6th Form at all but to start working while studying for my ‘A’ levels through private tuition. At the time, the thought of spending that extra year in a classroom was just too much for me.

The subsequent hurdles attached to University enrollment (the 20-point system and the need for a sponsor) meant I also delayed going to University until an evening course finally opened up in 1986.

The generations which followed mine had to deal with even more challenges: Mintoff’s battle to make Church schools free, which led to their temporary closure and the introduction of compulsory subjects such as Arabic and Physics, just to mention two.

The Nationalist administration made its own debatable changes, such as the decision to remove trade schools. Before that, Form 2 students who were not academically inclined could choose to go to a trade school, which is why you can find a whole generation of gifted seamstresses and mechanics over a certain age. Ironically, it was a PN government which signed the 1992 Church-State agreement making Church schools free (although parents paid a voluntary donation) and which led to the lottery system to get into a Church schools, making them accessible to all.

Every cluster of students hit by these incidents and changes have their own story to tell of how it affected their life.

Of all the changes, however the one which continues to remain a bone of contention is whether to stream or not to stream children according to their abilities.

It’s been an on again/off again experiment as successive education ministers, academics,  teachers and parents cannot seem to agree on what is best. In 1971 an attempt was made to remove streaming with the abolition of end-of-year exams and all children automatically moving from primary to secondary school – it did not work, because the slower students were clearly struggling to keep up.

In 1974, the exams and streaming were back in place. Then came the setting up of the Junior Lyceums in 1981 for those who did well in their 11 plus exams; those who did not make it, or did not bother to sit for the exams, remained in area secondary schools, which by implication branded them as “failures”.

Parents with high aspirations for their children loved the system, pushing them harder and harder to achieve – I am not so sure about the children themselves who had dark circles under their eyes from studying all the material by heart. The exams themselves were eventually widened to include five subjects instead of three, and later came the concept of ‘colleges’ so that all primary children would proceed to the same college to follow different courses according to benchmarking, in an attempt to remove the stigma of being left behind.

Finally, after a long process of consultation, came the educational reform in 2011 in which it was announced that the Junior Lyceum exam would be phased out and “the streaming and selection in the primary and lower secondary is to be abolished”. Teachers were given training in teaching mixed ability classes and with this came an influx of LSAs (Learning Support Assistants) to give individual attention in the classroom to students who, for whatever reason, lagged behind.  From comments I have heard from teachers, this experiment did not exactly work either.

Now, it seems we are back to square one, with the announcement that streaming (or “banding” as it is now being described) is back. Education Minister Evarist Bartolo insists, however, that the two terms mean entirely different things, saying that “this is absolutely not streaming. Streaming did not yield successful results in the past. But teachers are finding it difficult to cope with mixed ability classes. Banding creates groups in which abilities are not that different to each other”.

This measure would apply to students in Years 5 and 6 but it will be left up to schools whether to apply it or not. 

University academics are dead set against this new reform, quoting studies to back up their objections. On the other hand (and understandably) it is being widely welcomed by teachers. The reaction from parents is as mixed as the concept of mixed ability itself. 

This is not a clear-cut issue because during their educational development children learn at a different pace, sometimes struggling to understand certain concepts while easily grasping others.  We have tried lumping them all together to give them an equal chance but teachers argue that it is impossible to teach the same syllabus to a mixed ability class. Academics argue that streaming/banding is detrimental to children from disadvantaged backgrounds leading to an achievement gap.

Do children with difficulties try harder if you set the standard higher or do they feel even more discouraged? Do gifted kids get dragged down in a teaching environment which has to cater to all, or will they do well anyway precisely because they are gifted? 

After reading both sides of the argument I still cannot decide who is right. But after decades of experimenting with our educational system, I just hope that finally one day we will get it right.