Yesterday, the media portal pertaining to the editor, owner and co-founder Saviour Balzan of the Media Today and Malta Today, Illum, published an article about the pay rise that Maltese educators are expected to get in the new sectoral agreement of which talks are still ongoing between the government and MUT.
The article, written by a ‘staff reporter’ who did not even have courage to show his name, is an insult towards Maltese educators.
The ‘staff reporter’ stated that the collective agreement about teachers will soon be concluded after long talks between the Minister of Education Clifton Grima and the MUT led by Marco Bonnici.
It stated that the pay rise that the Maltese educators are going to receive will be the biggest sum in the history of educators. Any specific information on how much this pay rise, which is being described as huge, will be? In the last sectoral agreement, many made a fuss about the pay rise that educators received, when, in reality, once taxes are deducted, it amounted to the equivalent sum of a few bottles of lemonade and a few packets of crisps. How come this is already known to the media portal Illum? The ‘staff reporter’ added that the agreement will include giving millions upon millions to teachers.
And because of this, it is predicted that as soon as these salaries are calibrated, children’s fees in private schools will explode, and many middle-income parents will either have to make huge sacrifices to keep their children there, or else pull them out of the school entirely! What a vile and idiotic argument! Why is there such an interest in and focus on private schools by Illum? Is it because Saviour Balzan was a non-qualified teacher himself and used to teach at St Edward’s, who is an independent and private school? In Malta, we have very few private schools, and usually, only the high-income, rich families afford to send their children to private schools. A pay rise to educators will not affect the middle-income parents whose children attend either state schools or church schools and whose teachers’ salaries, are paid by the government! And surely, it won’t affect anyone except teachers themselves who have been cursed with a low salary for many, many years!
The ‘staff reporter’ continues spewing venom and insults. He wrote that in no part of the agreement are there any radical changes that improve the situation of children’s learning in schools or that contact hours are increased. In fact, the teachers will remain with the same holidays and with the same conditions, as for example where there is Parents’ Day, the school is closed and the children do not attend school.
Dear ‘staff reporter’, the reason why children do not attend school is in the title itself – it is called Parents’ Day. How do you expect educators to be providing valuable information and feedback to parents while teaching their children in the classroom? As far as I know their bodies are not made to be in two different places at the same time.
The ‘staff reporter’ proceeded to give another example – that when there are seminars in schools for teachers, the school is also closed. This is another wrong statement. Firstly, the schools are open. Secondly, you said it yourself that these seminars are done in schools for teachers. Definitely teachers are not having a drink at the beach. These seminars are compulsory and are there to assist their development in the profession.
The ‘staff reporter’ continues spewing venom and insults. He wrote that in the collective agreement, nothing is said about private lessons, an eternal scourge of the Maltese education system that concerns thousands of students and hundreds of teachers. There are cases where the same teachers who teach in the classroom end up giving private lessons to the same students for an undeclared fee. As far as I know, teachers do not give private lessons to students they teach and the reasons are quite straightforward. An example is a question of privacy. Secondly, had they had a good salary, they would surely not have the need to work extra after school hours. Thirdly, if students attend private lessons, it is the education system which must be blamed, along with the lack of skills and support which they are not given from a very young age at home, like the love of reading and the skill to listen attentively.
The article concluded with the same invalid argument regarding private schools. It reads: as soon as the collective agreement is presented by the MUT to its members for approval, the problem of the salary conditions of teachers in independent schools arises. It is predicted that as soon as these salaries are calibrated, children’s fees in private schools will explode, and many middle-income parents will have to, or make great sacrifices to keep their children there, or else pull them out entirely. A scenario that, the Government and the MUT forgot or did not consider when they were drawing up the last details of the collective agreement that will cost millions upon millions.
It forgot to add that what cost millions upon millions are the super huge salaries that individual government-appointed bureaucrats take while they are in public office. Or like when you have an owner and co-founder of local media portals who became a paid-sponsor of his masters, while turning into a millionaire.
But the ‘staff reporter’ of Illum does not care. All this reporter cares about is to ‘bad mouth’ teachers in front of a large audience, through the article, so to gain some publicity and favour, even if he does not care if this will hurt and harm the profession and teachers even more. Or is this an orchestrated campaign against educators?
The media portal Illum of Saviour Balzan and his team used this article to insult Maltese educators and to fuel more hatred towards them and this noble profession.