No consultation over plans for schools closure cause for anxiety - PL

Such lack of consultation, Bartolo said, was creating anxiety and demoralisation as those involved still have not been informed of alternative arrangements.

Bartolo explained the schools that face imminent closure as plans are in-hand are girls' secondary schools at Cospicua, Tarxien, Hamrun, St Andrew's and Rabat as well as boys' secondary schools in Vittoriosa, Floriana, Marsa, Zebbug, Gzira, Mtarfa, Birkirkara and Paola.

Bartolo emphasised that no one is being told where the new schools to replace them will be. He added that, over the past years, there had been cases where two schools replaced an old one, while no new schools replaced other schools which were in disrepair.

It was worrying, Bartolo said, that secondary schools are continuing to grow in an exaggerated manner and teachers and students are becoming “anonymous numbers” instead of “an educational community of people who knew each other.”

He said that work on a new syllabi for secondary school students in the wake of the removal of the Junior Lyceum exams, had fallen back. “Teachers' training as part of this change had also fallen back,” he added.