Abstract: In 2006, the Act to amend the Education Act, Cap. 3271 made provisions to reinforce and enhance the current school-parent partnership and collaboration.
education
Description
Abstract: In 2006, the Act to amend the Education Act, Cap. 3271 made provisions to reinforce and enhance the current school-parent partnership and collaboration. The study examined the current partnership and collaboration between schools and parents in four Maltese colleges and the challenges that Maltese educational leaders face so as to reinforce, enrich, and sustain joint-working. Data was collected from a substantial number of interviews with the selected policy-makers, college principals, heads of school, and teachers; reviewing official documents and observing council of heads meetings. The convenience and purposive sampling methods were employed to select the required sample of interviewees. The results of the study indicated that the schoolparent collaboration showed proof of a fractured history, an area fraught with uncertainty given a turbulent period in the 1970s and 1980s.2 The research findings will illuminate the position that educators currently hold towards parental involvement in the education of their children, together with the issues and challenges that educational school leaders can face in sustaining a partnership with parents. The study seeks to contribute towards an understanding of these issues and challenges.
A learning society’s economic success depends on its ability to
share ideas across disciplinary and organizational boundaries and
the strength of its educational system. Appreciating that educational
reform and change presents complex challenges to both the individual
stakeholder and society, we can then begin to understand both the
small and big picture and, in turn, realize the larger significance of
educational change.3
The Maltese education system (from kindergarten to university)
together with its examination system followed the British model
(probably because of Malta’s colonial past) very closely.4
Studies5
give evidence of a highly centralized and bureaucratic state education.
The government sought to address the situation by adopting a more
decentralized approach to policy- and decision-making, a shift that saw
its inception in the mid-1990s.
