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Given the current shortage of teachers and the diminishing attraction of the teaching profession, it is important to have analytic and systematic studies of teachers' lives and careers, and to locate teachers' lives within a wider contextual understanding. The rationale for this educational research paper is to study Maltese teachers' professional behaviour and how they define themselves as teachers, particularly in a period of time where teachers in Malta were experiencing reform fatigue. The authors' aims were to explore the factors which motivate people to enter and remain into teaching, and to identify the routes they take throughout their career. Data were collected through an empirical research consisting of an online questionnaire with open-ended questions with teachers (n = 755). One of the findings shows that the majority of teachers enter the profession for altruistic motives, however, if given the opportunity, they would move into another role or profession.

Programming is one of the most important aspects of a Computing course. Teaching programming is a challenging task due to a number of factors, ranging from lack of student problem solving skills to different teaching methods. This paper focuses on Maltese Computing teachers' perspectives about the difficulties encountered when teaching programming to secondary school students in order to determine whether introducing programming to secondary school students through creating mobile-based games is an effective method to teach programming constructs. A resource pack consisting of various activities using MIT App Inventor 2 was created which incorporated constructivist approaches to teaching. This resource pack was reviewed by the teachers and their feedback was collected by means of a case study. The teachers agreed that developing mobile-based games would be highly stimulating to their students but there were uncertainties how this would affect students with different learning abilities and due to a general lack of computational thinking and problem-solving skills by most students.

In 2018, the state Kindergarten sector in Malta (3-5 years) was influenced by the shift from a prescriptive to an emergent curriculum, and the increasing use of eTwinning - a particular scenario that is research-worthy. Through one narrative inquiry of a Kindergarten educator who decided to 'marry' the emergent curriculum and eTwinning in practice, this paper aims to systematically track down the educator's experience of this integration. Findings indicate initial and ongoing challenges overshadowed by sustained success through the synergy created from the philosophically fused emergent curriculum and the eTwinning concept. This study conceptualises the birth of an innovative approach and surfaces a rediscovery of Froebel's 19th-century Kindergarten.

Teacher shortages and retention problems occur globally. This paper explores support for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs), in particular the role of mentoring. Reasons for mentoring NQTs include combating isolation and fostering collaboration, enhancing professional practice and retaining teachers in the profession. Three different national environments are compared, with teacher induction programmes at national and local levels providing support for NQTs. We contrast the situation in Scotland, an early adopter of a national teacher induction scheme (2002), with that of Malta where an induction programme has been in place since 2010 and Denmark where there is no national scheme, but some support may be organised at a municipal or school level. In all three countries challenges were found in the enactment of mentoring such as having time for observation and feedback but also in terms of how to mentor. Based on our findings we propose that both mentors and NQTs need time away from their teaching commitments to devote to their mentoring relationship. Furthermore, it would appear from our analysis that while a national induction scheme is important to promote the induction of NQTs, support for the transition into the teaching profession also depends on the individual school context.

This paper presents ways in which animated cartoons influence primary school children's views of social reality based on students' relationships with these characters and their perception of these characters as being 'real'. For this purpose, a mixed methods approach was adopted, in which 9/10-year-old Maltese primary school children were provided with an opportunity to participate in activities related to cartoon characters. In these activities the children (n = 10) provided their interpretations of animated cartoon characters through drawings, writings and verbally during semi-structured interviews and cartoon watching. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the children's verbal expressions and interpretations. From the outcomes of the analysis, educational implications and cross-curricular pedagogical suggestions were then derived through the use of the MIRROR multimodal framework. These educational implications indicate that children can be taught critical thinking skills through the integration of animated cartoons in different curricular subjects. Moreover, the results indicate that students need to be offered the possibility to express themselves through various modes as exemplified in the pedagogical suggestions proposed. These pedagogical suggestions can be used by primary school educators, parents and guardians in order to teach creativity, expressive skills and literacy skills to primary school children.

The positioning of migrant students within schools of the host country is considerably determined by issues related to the language of instruction adopted in these schools. This article presents a qualitative study conducted in two Maltese girls' secondary schools and examines how teachers and migrant students dealt with language issues. Data were collected through focus groups to find out power dynamics that emerged as a result of the negotiations surrounding issues related to language. The authors draw on Foucault's works on power relations to demonstrate that learning experiences of migrant girls are situated in language and shaped by joint construction of meanings, which students and teachers create. The findings indicate that migrant students' use of language functioned as a source of power, which seemed instrumental in developing a sense of belonging at school. Although the study is located within a specific Maltese context, it may be considered relevant to debates about the experiences of English language learners in other geographical and socio-cultural settings involving migrant students.

This paper explores the experience of educators who participated in a Train the Trainer programme with the aim of supporting teachers in the implementation of the Learning Outcomes Framework (LOF). Empirical data collected through interviews and narratives from a number of LOF Trainers, are analysed through a grounded theory approach. The insights of the participants on the effectiveness of the programme led the authors to identify which factors helped to render this programme a rewarding and meaningful experience, how this programme has equipped and empowered educators with the required skills to support their peers, and how the nature of the programme has led to the development of a professional learning community. The results lead to a consideration of how teacher learning environments can be transformed in order to build educator proficiencies, enhance their leadership capacities and make them more participative in the processes which impact on their professional lives.

Current reforms in the Maltese and Scottish educational contexts can only be fully implemented if teachers radically transform the way they teach. Teacher professional learning is an important mechanism that policy-makers, school leaders and administrators have to achieve this. Teacher professional learning is, above all, situated within the specific social workplace environment of teacher practice. Thus, schools need to be recognised as important sites of professional learning for teachers. In Malta and Scotland teachers were asked about their professional learning to identify how the learning environment within individual schools affects professional learning. In both countries, collaboration and school leadership were key components in determining a school's learning environment. Data analysis led to the production of examples of expansive and restrictive features. Policy-makers, school leaders and administrators can use these features to examine how schools operate in terms of helping or hindering professional learning in the school environment.

In this article the relationship between teacher change and teacher learning is analysed. Data presented here were gathered through self-study research over a 30-month period, during which the author, as a teacher-researcher in Malta, systematically recorded observations and reflections into a reflective journal. This article addresses issues such as: (a) how habitual routines that are technical in nature are formed, and how these tend to distance the practitioner from consciously developing and learning, and subsequently changing and improving professional practice; (b) how uncertainty regarding an innovation in the educational field might induce the need for both change and development; (c) how continuous learning and critically questioning beliefs and assumptions is important for change to occur; (d) how important determination on the practitioner's part is in the fight against the status quo; and (e) how reflective practice can be seen as a corrective to experiential over-learning.

This paper presents the outcomes of a research study on the perspective of Heads of primary schools in Malta about the relationship between school autonomy and school responsiveness. Knowing whether, and how, school autonomy is related to school responsiveness can provide a key to action for improvement in the Maltese education system. A mixed methods approach allowed the collection and analysis of data from a relatively large proportion of the target population and its interpretation through the participation of a sample from the same population. Most Heads were found to believe that greater school autonomy, especially in the curriculum and instruction domain, would help increase responsiveness. Most were also personally in favour of increased autonomy, especially in the mentioned domain. Acknowledging the complexity of the subject matter, the paper suggests an iterative approach to change that prioritises the professional autonomy of school-based educators as the guiding principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The < 900-m-thick Paleogene carbonates of the Maltese Islands and offshore wells comprise 16 facies grouped into 7 carbonate facies associations (TA, TB, TC, TD1, TD2, TE1 and TE2). Previous works misclassified facies as belonging to a carbonate ramp, which derailed hydrocarbon exploration. This study confirms that the 200-km-wide, flat-topped, Malta isolated carbonate platform consists of coarse-grained, platform margin sediments surrounding the muddy, shallow marine interior that was tectonically segmented by half graben during foreland extension. Dating by correlation to benthic foraminiferal zones reveals two > 15 Ma-long depositional hiatuses that bound the Eocene carbonates. Cyclic sediments are capped by Eocene gypsum beds and Oligocene palaeosols and were controlled by third-order sea level cycles. About 700 m of inner platform sediments accumulated from the Eocene (TA and TB) to the early Chattian (TC) until an abrupt and ubiquitous change to platform margin facies dominated by coralline red algae and subordinate corals (TD1). The succeeding transgressive rhodalgal biostrome (TD2) aggraded > 40 m and prograded into underfilled half graben, later capped by mobile dunes of large benthic foraminifera (TE1). Deeper water oligophotic to aphotic biota (TE2) draped over the platform by the late Chattian. Increased foreland subsidence and the spread of coarse-grained platform margin sediments signals the beginning of the drowning succession reflecting environmental stress, the decline of coral reef builders, reduced sedimentation rate and increased dispersal rates, culminating in hardgrounds along the drowning surface that terminated carbonate platform sedimentation by the end of the Chattian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ruins are a statement on the building materials used and the construction method employed. Casa Ippolito, now in ruins, is typical of 17th-century Maltese aristocratic country residences. It represents an illustration of secondary or anthropogenic geodiversity. This paper scrutinises these ruins as a primary source in reconstructing the building's architecture. The methodology involved on-site geographical surveying, including visual inspection and non-invasive tests, a geological survey of the local lithostratigraphy, and examination of notarial deeds and secondary sources to support findings about the building's history as read from its ruins. An unmanned aerial vehicle was used to digitally record the parlous state of the architectural structure and karsten tubes were used to quantify the surface porosity of the limestone. The results are expressed from four perspectives. The anatomy of Casa Ippolito, as revealed in its ruins, provides a cross-section of its building history and shows two distinct phases in its construction. The tissue of Casa Ippolito—the building elements and materials—speaks of the knowledge of raw materials and their properties among the builders who worked on both phases. The architectural history of Casa Ippolito reveals how it supported its inhabitants' wellbeing in terms of shelter, water and food. Finally, the ruins in their present state bring to the fore the site's potential for cultural tourism. This case study aims to show that such ruins are not just geocultural remains of historical built fabric. They are open wounds in the built structure; they underpin the anatomy of the building and support insights into its former dynamics. Ruins offer an essay in material culture and building physics. Architectural ruins of masonry structures are anthropogenic discourse rendered in stone which facilitate not only the reconstruction of spaces but also places for human users; they are a statement on the wellbeing of humanity throughout history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses major challenges for the development of teacher education for inclusion through an analysis of relevant recent experience in Malta. Inclusion in society and in education has been explicitly on the Maltese national agenda for the past two decades. The Faculty of Education of the University of Malta has been one of the main actors of the inclusion initiative and has also taken a European initiative through the recent co-ordination of a seven-country, 3-year European Union Comenius project on preparing teachers for responding to student diversity. This paper is based mostly on the reflective experience of the author at the Faculty of Education over the past several years. A brief picture of the Maltese education system is followed by a description of the challenges that have been encountered in the promotion of inclusion. These include the development of a rights-based approach to the education of persons with disability and the widening of its application to all minority or disadvantaged groups, and the impact of political and social contexts on the development of inclusive schools. These developments are then related to intertwined initiatives for teacher education for diversity that were further influenced by the leadership of deans and heads of the department in the faculty of education. Finally, four current issues are highlighted, namely: the strategic balance between the education of specialist educators and that of all teachers for diversity, and between specific and infusion models for such education, and, finally, the pedagogic balance between the academic and experiential learning about inclusion, and between the theory and practice of inclusive teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on several researches related to different diseases and its treatment and surgery including the observational study on blood-loss visual estimation, alloimmune neonatal thrombocytopenia (antp), and chronic lung disease incidence on premature in Malta.

The article discusses the dynamics of the relationship between the global and the local education policy initiatives in the small island state of Malta. The Maltese islands are a typical case of a small state, whose small size often leads to particular economies and relations to the global.The minister of Education chose to establish a Foundation for Educational Services (FES) and a Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools, through a deed published in March 2001.The newly founded FES has its own statute as a juridical personality and an annual budget of Lm 50,000,which matches the Lm 60,000 needed for the supposed implementation of the NMC in all schools. According to its statute,as a legal personality, the Foundation may enter into contracts, employ personnel and acquire or hold property. It is also authorized to carry out activities and undertakings on a commercial basis for the purposes of funding the implementation and furtherance of its aims and objectives, despite being a not-for-profit organization. With the centralized power of the Ministry backing it, the FES is going directly to schools who are already having difficulty when they object to being drawn into certain programmes without appropriate partnership planning.

The article presents information on analysis of a new national curriculum document in a non-secular environment. Throughout the past four years, there has been a revamping of the National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) document in Malta, that was established in 1988. The 'old' National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) was subject to criticism focusing on a variety of issues concerning difference and identity. The issues of equity and the affirmation of social difference, as well as the move towards de-streaming, are discussed. It is argued that this process of reform benefited from the criticism of the earlier NMC document. Much of the criticism of the old NMC document, in relation to class, focused on the language question, an important question in a number of postcolonial states. The article concludes with a discussion centering around lessons to be drawn from a process of curricular reform, involving issues related to identity and difference, carried out in a country characterized by a non-secular environment.

Presents some of the developments that are being undertaken in Malta to address the managerial development of headteachers, and attempts to place this development within the context of educational reforms currently taking place. Analyses the developments in policy, research, theory and practice in school management training in Malta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the education system in Malta. Features identifying the Maltese educational system; Overview of the assessment system; Information on the secondary school examinations; Examination in small states.