The evolving situation of the massive deployment of teachers in services to take primary classes during the last minute, and the way it has been tackled by the Ministry, supposedly of Education, has once more confirmed the way that the ministry is looking at the primary cycle of education. Ordering transfers on the eve of the start of the scholastic year, and expecting teachers to take a primary class within hours, is a confirmation that the ministry continues to look down to the primary cycle of education, so much that they think that teaching a primary class is an easy task.
The ministry should know better. Even if there are sections of the public that think that a primary class is about child minding (“jagħmlu naqra somom, Ingliż u Malti u jaraw li ma jweġġgħux!”), the ministry should instead work towards addressing such stereotypes and not reproducing them through its actions. Actions speak louder than words, and the decisions taken by the ministry during the past days exposed the level of disrespect towards the work of primary teachers, not to mention the message portrayed that the services of the affected specialised teachers are dispensable.
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