Discipline

Abstract

In 1980, the Education Department issued a booklet' consisting of regulations and recommendations to be implemented by teachers in state schools. One of the sections in this booklet dealt with the question of 'discipline'. The emphasis which discipline was given in Malta at the time in social and political quarters is well-known. After the 'failed' experiment in secondary education in the early and middle years of the 1970s, which led to what came to be universally regarded as a crisis in this sector, remedy was sought, mainly, in two directions; the setting up of the 'junior lyceums' to reverse the policy which had established the 'area' secondary schools in 1972 with their non-selective populist character, and the emphasis on more discipline within the schools in general to respond to the popular criticism levelled against the 'area' secondary schools at the time that that same non-selective populist character had resulted in anarchy and in the general deterioration of standards which comes from anarchy.