Maltese Primary School Teachers’ Experience of Centralised Policies

Abstract

Maltese State primary school teachers labour under the control of centralised policy‐making. Their experiences of constraint and the coping and pedagogical strategies they subsequently develop, show that these teachers can often subvert even the most rigorous central directives. Moreover, their counter strategies raise many valid objections to the rationality of implementing some of the centralised policies. Whilst not forming an organised pressure group, in their classroom strategies primary school teachers share a commonality of perspective and purpose that can pose a serious threat to the declared objectives of the policy makers. The Maltese case should serve as a caution to those national systems that are now moving from decentralised to centralised forms of educational policy‐making. Since teachers find their own solutions’ to practical curricular and pedagogical constraints in the classroom more effective than those suggested by segments higher up in the implementation staircase, it is posited that policy‐making would be more effective if teachers had a larger part in the process than is possible in a centralised system.