The ideological struggle over comprehensive education in Malta

Abstract

This chapter provides a historical account of the Comprehensive Secondary schooling reform in Malta between 1972 and 1981. It first considers the origins and development of the idea of comprehensive education in Europe. The ideology of comprehensives prevalent among the European political ‘left’, as well as the link between the latter and local policy-makers, are addressed. The political, economic and social contexts in which the comprehensive education reform was launched in Malta in 1972 are discussed, as are the reactions of different sectors of the Maltese population towards it. Attention is given to the likely motives behind the positions adopted by the different power groups, both in education and outside of it. In attempting to consider this complex period of educational development in Malta, I have examined surviving primary sources such as Education Department Circulars, Class Broadsheets and the printed media of the time as well as secondary sources such as scholarly articles written years after the end of the reform. Using multiple methods of investigation,1 I have also interviewed several of the social actors involved in the events being researched. This helps towards ensuring data triangulation. The Comprehensive Education Concept What does one understand by the term ‘comprehensive education’? This term implies an education system that does not differentiate between students, a non-selective type of education that caters for the individual needs of all students according to their different abilities and aptitudes. Instead of having students educated in different schools according to academic achievement, as in selective systems of education, students are educated in one single school, the Comprehensive school, which provides a wide curriculum, including both academic and vocational disciplines, in such a way that each individual student can develop at his/her own pace.