Personal and social education : opportunities for work education

Abstract

This chapter sets out to look carefully at a curricular space that offers opportunities for critical work education, one in which guidance counsellors are frequently involved. I first describe and analyse the introduction of personal and social education (henceforth referred to as PS E) in the formal national curriculum in Maltese schools. This curricular innovation in Malta is placed in the context of the emergence of PSE in a number of 'Western' countries, and linked to a specific socio-economic reality. The second section of the paper explores why Anglo-Saxon experiments in PSE attracted Maltese educational authorities and policy-makers, and how curricular initiatives are adopted in post-colonial educational systems, even though the original goals for that initiative as expressed in the 'mother country' are subverted or significantly modified to address the particular concerns of the 'recipient country'. It is argued that while there are normative problems with the skills approach to education which PSE-type initiatives generally espouse, such programmes do provide a significant space through which counter-hegemonic and non-bureaucratic forms of educational experiences can he introduced. Finally, the PSE programme proposed for Maltese schools, together with the underlying rationale, is presented, and a special emphasis is placed on the opportunities for critical work education that PSE provides.