"Ejjew Naqraw Ftit" : a selection of readings for boys at the new secondary schools (former opportunity centres)

Abstract

All countries show concern for a group of pupils who fail entirely to benefit from school, who are unmotivated, who at the best sit their time out passively, at the worst behave disruptively. This group of pupils is multiple in composition, so also are the reasons for failure, but primarily they are the slow learners and those who come from the "culture of poverty". The slow learners arrive from primary schools often disheartened by their comparative failure and handicapped in all academic subjects by their poor standards of literacy and numeracy. They need particular aid, above all with essential communication skills. The reasons for failure with pupils who come from the "culture of poverty" is fundamentally social, but school is a past of society. Though the school cannot hope single handed to change a cultural pattern, it can certainly play a role in doing so. The main problem is that these pupils and their parents are hostile to and suspicious of teachers and schools which are seen as representative of the enemy "they". Unless such hostility can be overcome, no acceptable curriculum or context can be devised. The existing "academically" dominated curriculum taught in a framework of middle-class conventions of behaviour and language is inappropriate. The creation of school such as the Opportunity Centres, was intended to cater for such pupils. In these centres it is less difficult in some ways to accept the different conventions of behaviour and language demonstrated by such pupils. The pupils who attend the centres are those who did not succeed to obtain fifteen marks in the Maltese, English and Mathematics in the Secondary School entrance examinations. At the end of the first year at the Opportunity Centre, they have the chance to re-sit for the Entrance examination to an area Secondary School, as other pupils in Year VI of the Primary Schools. If they fail the examination or opt not to sit for it, they remain at the centre [...].