By Prof. Christopher Bezzina from the Faculty of Education and Ms Denise Gatt, Director for Quality and Standards in Education
A recent conference entitled Empower, Inspire, Lead: The way to school improvement jointly organised by the Ministry for Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation, and the University of Malta focused on educational leadership and quality assurance.
This conference served as an opportunity to:
- critically engage with the National Education Strategy 2024-2030 (NES);
- introduce the strategy;
- present and engage in a series of panel discussions, which included the ongoing engagement of around 300 participants over 2 days.
This was discussed in light of the Quality Assurance Framework for Education in Malta (0-16) and the National Quality Standards in Education (3-16), published by the Ministry for Education in 2023.
The conference was conceptualised as a start of a journey, a journey of engagement between educators hailing from the three sectors – namely State, Church and Independent sector, involve educators working with the different Directorates/Departments, institutions and entities, and colleagues representing different stakeholders.
It has been described as a journey of transformation, hence moving away from reforms that are conceptualised as being cast in stone, to an approach which is evolving as the different stakeholders engage with the draft strategy.
But this is far from an easy endeavour. It will take courage; ongoing commitment; a love for learning; sacrifice; a belief that we need to engage different, embrace what Matthew Syed describes as cognitive diversity, one that encourages people from different areas of society contributing to this discourse that will lead to transformation. The three pillars which form the strategy aim at achieving a quality education through meaningful strategic planning and continuous evaluation towards tangible improvement.
We usually do not describe conferences as journeys. Why is this conference different? From the word go, the organisers agreed that the conference would serve as a launching pad, the start for further engagements with educators and other stakeholders.
The focus on the conference wasn’t on just showcasing the NES or presenting it as a fully-fledged document. We are entering a phase that offers educators in general, and the general public in particular, an opportunity to deliberate on the aims/ objectives and pillars of the NES. The Faculty of Education will be putting forward its views; the Chamber of Commerce will forward their reactions; schools are being invited to participate in various fora to present their own observations. The general public, other institutions are encouraged to accept this invitation to provide constructive feedback to ensure that the Strategy captures the needs of our students, our educators, and that of society in general.
The conference allowed us to focus on a number of critical issues, namely educational leadership and quality assurance.
The keynote address argued for a conference that will break new ground in the way we engage with educational reform in general and the way we define and work with issues of leadership – at systems and College/school level. And, if we are going to talk of leadership, we need to embrace in our discourse other important elements which include governance, trust, responsibility and accountability. The focus of the keynote presentation was to highlight the importance behind a strategy that needs to embrace trust not only within the education sector but across the whole of our society. The paper also focused on governance and the need to move away from the transactional model of governance to the transformational and transcendent leadership and governance.
Leaders and educators play a crucial role in promoting this new approach towards implementation and evaluation of NES. This is where the role of both internal and external quality assurance mechanisms as well as the National Standards come into play. The Quality Assurance Framework for Education in Malta (0-16), brings forward a vision for a sustainable approach towards quality assurance where schools and educational institutions are encouraged to devise their own plans for improvement, based on their context, background and needs.
This continuous process, aiming towards clear and tangible standards will help in bringing national as well as school specific objectives together towards relevant improvement.
Over the weeks to come, we will be presenting a series of articles that aim to engage the readers with the NES. The first article starts off by contextualising such a discourse by looking at the context we are currently in; the challenges that face us, and the potential way forward. This will help the reader to see how the NES needs to introduce new forms of governance, one which will allow us to ensure that our Colleges/ schools can take leadership seriously. It is argued that unless we introduce new governance structures our educational institutions will not be empowered, inspired or led to take their schools forward. We need institutions that will be allowed the latitude to lead, to take bold decisions based on identified needs and supported by structures that can adequately help them address the ever-growing challenges that our education system / country is facing.
We are faced with personal, organisational and societal challenges. The aim is to ensure that the NES provides healthy debate that will bring about the necessary changes at systems and school level to truly bring about change.