History of the Faculty of Education

The Faculty of Education was set up in 1978. Its main concern was pre-service teacher training, a role that had previously and since the post-war years been fulfilled first by the two training colleges - St. Michael's for men, the Mater Admirabilis for women - and then, after 1972, by the Malta College of Education (up to 1974) and the Department of Educational Studies at the MCAST (up to 1978).

Since 1980, the Faculty of Education has taken on a variety of roles that are linked to a wider conception of education and training. However, its main focus remains pre-service and in-service teacher education. Indeed, the largest proportion of students attached to the Faculty follow either the full-time B.Ed.(Hons.) or P.G.C.E. courses, or one of the part-time certificate, diploma, and master courses that lead to specialisation in areas such as counselling, teaching children with special needs, the use of information technology in the classroom, the teaching of English as a foreign language, and educational administration and management.

The Faculty, however, offers a wider repertoire of training that includes such fields as adult education, media studies, journalism, youth studies, and librarianship. The Faculty strives to promote quality education in all its aspects, primarily through teaching, research, consultancy work, and the provision of educational resources, and by modelling, through its own practice, the high standards that it strives to achieve in inculcate in all learning settings.