Update with Education Ministry statement below – The Malta Union Teachers has said that “in one of the most messy exercises carried out in the last decade, several teachers providing essential services in schools including literacy support, complementary teaching, nurture support, subject specialists, support for dyslexia, support for hearing impaired, hospital support etc received a notification that they were being transferred to a primary class from Monday.”

In a statement on Sunday, the Union said that “this means that they will not continue to provide the support to students in their designated roles.”

It went on to say that,”contrary to the image that the Ministry for Education is trying to portray regarding teacher shortage in primary schools, information which reached the union indicates that the Ministry has up to 150 primary classes without a teacher.”

The MUT said that it is “following these deployment cases and is protesting with the Ministry about this unprecedented deployment exercise. The union has already declared a trade dispute with the Ministry earlier this week and is issuing directives to affected teachers.”

It pointed out that, “the Ministry, has been boasting for months that it is well prepared to start the new scholastic year. However, it chose to hide this massive problem rather than averting the crisis several months ago.”

“Now, in panic mode,” the Ministry for Education is “trying to fill these vacancies through a rushed deployment exercise on the eve of the scholastic year, leaving thousands of students without essential services for the entire scholastic year and is expecting teachers to prepare to take a primary class, which they may have never taught, overnight. This is unacceptable,” the MUT said.

Update: Education Ministry statement

The Ministry for Education, in reaction, said that that “everything is ready to start a new school year for the benefit of our children, with work that has been done and continues to address all the challenges that arise in the sector.”

The Ministry affirmed that it is “always ready to discuss with all stakeholders in the education sector, during which the priority will always be the interest of students and educators.”

The Education Ministry said it has “always spoken to the union, such as on the circumstances of the pandemic and with the necessary restrictions it demanded in these extraordinary circumstances, including that it required a number of primary school teachers be re-admitted to primary school classes temporarily, as was done in the last school year.”

Talks on this have been going on “for a long time” and the Ministry said that it has “always been clear” with the union on how the deployments, according to seniority, of teachers from the peripatetic service due to the need for 82 teachers for primary schools.” However, “lately the union has changed its mind,” it said.

The Education Ministry called for the “cooperation of all those involved in the education sector to start the next school year and not to hamper the education of our children.”

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