The Education Ministry has denied reports and a PN statement about a shortage of Maltese language teachers.
On Friday, a number of parents commented on the social media, saying that their children had a number of free lessons because there were not enough staff to teach the subject.
One person said his daughter, who is in Form 2, would only have two out of four scheduled lectures since there were not enough teachers. The other two lessons would be ‘free lessons’, he claimed.
Another parent said the same thing was being experienced at the school her children attend. This came as no surprise, she said, since teachers’ salaries had not been increased “for years.”
Another woman complained about having to pay for private lessons when her Form 5 daughter had “many” free lessons at school due to a lack of teachers.
PN Secretary General and education spokesperson said on Friday that the new scholastic year was “characterised by teacher shortages” in several subjects, including Maltese, maths and English.
He said the government was once again failing to address this issue, leaving hundreds of students with missing lectures.
But in comments to this newspaper, a spokesperson for Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said these reports were “untrue and baseless.”
The ministry categorically denied the reports and insisted that there is no shortage of Maltese language teachers in state schools. No Maltese language teachers have a load of 25 lessons, the ministry said.
