Malta – Early childhood education and care : ECEC workforce profile

Abstract

Administrative responsibility for childcare services catering for under threes was transferred from the Department for Social Welfare Standards, within the then Ministry for the Family & Social Solidarity, to the Ministry for Education and Employment on July 1st 2016. This was a laud-able move which brought all services associated to early childhood education and care under one entity. However, thus far this has resulted in it being merely an administrative shift, where childcare services have been added on to the responsibilities of staff within various departments at the Ministry for Education.

Shifting the administration of childcare settings to the Ministry for Education was in part motivated by the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) (MEDE 2012) which foresaw an early years cycle that promotes the education and care for 0 to 7 year-olds. Bringing all services under one ministry had also been a recommendation in policy documents (MEDE 2013) in line with one of the OECD (2001) conclusions. However, in what appears to be an absence of a conceptual understanding of what the early years cycle implies in relation to the potential benefits of high-quality settings requiring highly trained staff skilled in managing, leading and working with young children and families, a decade later the ECEC services in Malta still comprise three distinct stages, namely:

1. Non-compulsory childcare services for under threes

2. Non-compulsory kindergarten settings for 3 to 5 year-olds and

3. The first two years of compulsory school, for 5 to 7 year-olds, traditionally and currently still part of the six-year compulsory primary cycle