MUT orders industrial dispute at Naxxar Higher Secondary

The Open Day at Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School has already taken place once before last year, but turned out to be the root of quite some trouble and tension between several educators. The Open Day was meant to be a showcase of the work done by the school and its educators, yet what it really turned into was described by the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) as “a street market of all the academic subjects and a competition between the different departments.”

The MUT was forced to order the dispute after the headmaster of the post-secondary institution imposed this Open Day on educators and administrators for the second consecutive year, without any consultation or consensus. The headmaster has ignored appeals from the Union to hold a meeting with his staff in order to discuss the issue and come to a decision in a democratic way, as well as orders from the Director General of Education to do the same.

Many educators say they are willing to participate in the Open Day, but are not willing, however, to accept “the dictatorial decision-making by the headmaster himself.”

The headmaster has allegedly responded by discretely threatening people with redundancies if not enough students attend, putting pressure on young educators, and even offering sums of money from the school’s funds to cover costs that they would incur if they were to ignore the MUT’s directive.

Several educators have expressed anger and disappointment at the way they are being treated.

Furthermore, the MUT claims that the headmaster ignored requests made by the Director General for him to attend a conciliatory meeting with the MUT.

Thus, the MUT has called for the education minister to investigate the headmaster’s leadership as well as his possible abuse of power in a case where he asked for a teacher to be stripped of her warrant after she took initiative to tackle a problematic question in a class-based test. According to the MUT, the case was thrown out by Council for the Teaching Profession, and wasted €3,000 in useless expenses.