Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/33159
Title: Educational development in post-colonial Malta
Other Titles: Inside/outside schools : towards a critical sociology of education in Malta
Authors: Sultana, Ronald G.
Keywords: Education and state -- Malta
Education -- Malta -- History
Issue Date: 1997
Publisher: Publishers Enterprises Group (PEG) Ltd.
Citation: Sultana, R. G. (1997). Educational development in post-colonial Malta. In R. G. Sultana (Eds.), Inside/outside schools : towards a critical sociology of education in Malta (pp. 87-118). San Gwann: Publishers Enterprises Group (PEG) Ltd.
Abstract: This chapter takes up the notion of 'education as struggle' developed in the previous two contributions, and examines the progress that has been achieved in the educational field since Malta became independent in 1964. Following World War II, Malta has had to face a number of economic, political and social challenges, and education has featured highly in contributing to human development on the island (Caruana, 1992). This is true both if we adopt a technocratic, 'human capital' perspective (Schultz, 1961)1 or a more liberal, emancipatory understanding of what education is about. In the former approach, education is considered to enhance development because it produces an increase in general and in job-specific knowledge which individuals can subsequently apply in an expanding economy, both to better utilise new technical developments and to generate innovations. The result is a marked pay-off in terms of increased production, yielding greater national wealth, corporate profits and individual wages (cf. Sobel, 1978; Violas, 1981; Sultana, 1994a). A more emancipatory approach to development looks towards education and other conditions such as political freedom, guaranteed human rights, and health care services as contributing elements to the creation of 'an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives' , widening people's choices and increasing the level of their achieved well-being (United Nations Development Programme,1995).The question that is addressed in this chapter is therefore the following: 'How has educational expansion in post-colonial Malta increased the welI-being of citizens?' Of course, the quantitative dimension of the question is rather more easily addressed, given that 'all' it requires is a set of statistics to measure the trends and direction in the delivery of the service. The qualitative dimension, signalled by the woolly phrase 'well-being' of people, is much more subjective and less amenable to measurement. But for all that, it is no less important. Indeed, the treatment of people as 'human capital' , as units that contribute to production, obfuscates and mystifies the relationship that exists between education and production on the one hand, and domination and exploitation on the other. Indeed, as many chapters in this volume show, rather than leading to well-being, education systems are directly involved in selecting and stratifying people - often on criteria that have more to do with class, race, and gender than 'objective' intelIectual ability - and then channelling particular categories of students towards specific locations in a segmented labour market. Some of these segments are, of course, characterised by work conditions and remunerative capacities that lead to healthy, creative life-styles. But others are not, and schools are directly implicated in the 'cooling out' of groups of students who are thus channelled towards the less lucrative and fulfilling sectors in the economy. One striking way of putting this is to claim that education systems are predicated on a logic of success for some, and failure for others. For, if we had to imagine an educator's dream to come true, that is that all students successfully complete a course of study, how would society be able to select, park and store all these students in the job hierarchy? This explains why educational sociologists in the post-war period have consistently argued that education systems should be considered as systems of violence rather more than of development, arguments that have been explored empirically by Maltese educational sociology researchers such as Darmanin and Sultana (cf. bibliography).
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/33159
ISBN: 9990900833
Appears in Collections:Inside/Outside Schools : towards a critical sociology of education in Malta
Scholarly Works - CenEMER
Scholarly Works - FacEduES

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