Malta

The Malta Tourism Authority, set up by an Act of Parliament on 1 September 1999, conducted an in-depth evaluation of the Malta tourism offer. It came to the conclusion that Malta was no longer competitive in the basic “sun and sea” package, due to the wider ranging offers by larger and often newer destinations able to handle much larger volumes.

This book provides an internationally comparable set of indicators on the educational provision for students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages (SENDDD). It covers the number of students concerned, their learning environment (special schools, special classes and regular classes) and level of education (pre-primary, compulsory and upper secondary education). It also discusses policy implications vis-à-vis special education needs and offers an analysis of the participation and performance of students with special education needs in the 2006 round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Interest in the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream education has increased faster than the actual inclusion of these students in standardised assessment and accountability systems. This chapter discusses the participation and performance of students with special education needs in the Baltic and South Eastern European countries (Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, and Slovenia) in PISA 2006. This chapter describes the participation rates by countries and the demographic characteristics of the students with special educational needs as a group, as well as by their disability status. Students’ educational experiences and perceptions are presented as well as their perceptions of their learning behaviours. In general, too few students with special education needs are included in PISA from not enough economies and the conclusions that can be drawn are therefore extremely limited.

Recently an increasing number of countries have established educational policies that allocate extra resources to students who cannot access school curricula as easily as their peers and who have come to be categorised as having disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages. Policies geared towards these students demonstrate positive discrimination and operate on the premise that some students require more resources than others in order to achieve equal access to schools and curricula. The goal of this study is then to identify the students and resources involved, develop an internationally comparable framework and link these results to outcome data in order to impact policies in participating economies.

This chapter provides recommendations based on the need for reforms in the education systems indicated by the data analysed in this book. Providing the correct legal framework for developing inclusive education and the necessary resources and support for students who have special education needs are important elements in developing equitable education systems where all students can benefit as fully as possible from the opportunities education brings. Gathering data is an essential component of developing effective policies and efficient strategies to achieve the goal of inclusive education and to know whether it is being achieved.

This chapter summarises the qualitative data gathered by participating economies via an electronic questionnaire. Country experts reported on legal frameworks and on factors which facilitate or act as barriers to inclusion and equity as well as on definitions of special education for gathering statistics. This chapter also discusses the allocation of categories of students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages included in the resources definition to the tripartite taxonomy. This forms the basis for the subsequent analyses of this report.

This chapter analyses the data based on the national categories used to provide additional resources for students who have difficulties in accessing the curriculum, as supplied by participating economies. It looks at the proportions registered in education statistics in the compulsory phase of education, by individual category of disability, learning difficulty or disadvantage and by location of education (special schools, special classes and regular classes).

Concerns about equity in education, the declining numbers of children and increased demands of the labour market are forcing education systems to take more interest in the educational progress of students who would otherwise under-achieve by offering considerable extra resources to help them learn more effectively. Providing equitable systems of education to promote the development of all children is an important goal for governments.

This chapter provides additional descriptive information on all students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages enrolled in educational programmes in special schools, special classes and regular classes classified by age and gender. It also discusses the preponderance of numbers of boys over girls in a wide range of analyses (educational setting, cross-national category, age of student, or phase of education).

This chapter looks more closely at the processes leading to data collection and synthesizes the statistics and indicators regarding students with special education needs and those at risk in South Eastern Europe, Malta and the Baltic States based on data provided by three sets of country reports. It provides recommendations for improving data collection and quality efforts so that important questions about participation in education for different groups of students may be answered.