The emergence of a Maltese teacher corps : from modest origins to strength in unity, 1800-1919

Abstract

Of the many studies on the development of education in Malta most have focussed on more recent developments in Maltese schools. Other research has analysed teachers' preoccupations and aspirations in modern-day Malta. A few have delved also into the historical background of local education. However, there is as yet no study which attempts to uncover the detail and intricacies of the local teachers' occupation throughout its formative period as an organised teaching body from what might be termed its birth, in the 1830s, to its early maturity in 1919. This book traces the evolution of the occupational position of the Maltese teacher in colonial Malta at a time when politics (especially the Language Question) and religion (especially the contrasts between the Maltese Catholic Church and the local Protestant Administration) dominated anything and everything within Maltese society. Consequently, teachers, as others in the public service, were constantly dependent on the political, social and economic environment which prevailed at the time. Teachers' aspirations, needs, insights and careers depended on forces beyond them, forces which could not be controlled by simple petitions, letters in the press or day-to-day grumbling. Teachers eventually realised that only through unity and homogeneity of purpose could they hope to mitigate the powers and elements which had been holding them back. As in other parts of the globe, Maltese teachers understood that the formation of a union comprising the majority, if not all, of the teaching body, was the only way forward towards their aspiration to higher esteem, status and salaries. These wishes had been developing since the l 91 h century, but became more evident during the first years of the 20th. The birth of the Malta Union of Teachers in 1919 gave rise to the second stage of teacher development in Malta, with the third stage reached in 1988 when official recognition of the teaching occupation as a profession in its own right was finally achieved. [excerpt]