Teachers’ union plays down lower PIRLS score

The president of the Malta Union of Teachers, Marco Bonnici, has given short shrift to the global literacy report PIRLS, which last week revealed Malta fared worse in 2016 than in 2011 in literacy among children.

Bonnici echoed education minister Evarist Bartolo when assessing the reading scores test, saying it was a “comparative test that does not consider the realities of bilingual countries in Malta.”

Bartolo has explained that the results are different due to the inherent differences between the studies of 2011 and 2016 (see Opinion, page 24).

In 2011, the test was administered to 10-year-olds in Maltese as a benchmark exercise but the main test was administered in English reading, resulting in a score of 477. In 2016, however, the main test was administered in Maltese only.

“Moreover, in 2016, we have a much larger share of non-Maltese students in our schools which may not possess the natural ability in the language had they been Maltese,” the minister said.

An amount of students in schools, for whom Maltese is not their natural language, could not participate in an effective way

The report, which the minister failed to announce last week and in fact wasn’t given any publicity in the first week, placed Malta in 40th place out of 50 participating countries – making it the worst performing among all European countries.

More pertinently, the report showed that Malta fared significantly worse in 2016, with a score of (452), than it did in 2011 (457). In both instances, Malta remained under the international average score of 500.

The Progress in International Reading Study (PIRLS) tested the reading ability of ten-year-olds in 50 countries. The study is conducted under the auspices of the International Association for the Eval-uation of Educational Achievement (IEA).

“I am not shy of criticising the education system and policies introduced then and now, when they don’t succeed. But it would be very unfair to compare apples and oranges, and give a different im-pression. This is why it is important to understand the mechanics of a study, before simply dishing out the result,” Bartolo said.

Similarly, Bonnici also remarked on the fact that the test was administered only in Maltese, and hence excluded a number of students from the study.

“An amount of students in schools, in which the Maltese language for them is not their natural language, could not participate in an effective way. This ultimately affected the percentages and the comparisons between countries which cannot really be compared,” he said, adding that a number of other bilingual countries with similar circumstances to Malta decided to not participate in PIRLS, possibly referring to countries such as Estonia and Cyprus which, like Malta, are small countries.

When contacted by this newspaper, Nationalist MP and shadow education minister Therese Co-modini Cachia failed to comment.