Government ignores Ombudsman’s report about LSE shortages

After a critical shortage of Learning Support Educators (LSEs) became the subject of an industrial dispute between the Union of Professional Educators (UPE) and the Education Ministry, the Ombudsman’s Office was forced to pass on its investigation findings to Parliament since “no action appears to have been taken” by the government.

The Education Commissioner within the Ombudsman’s Office published his final opinion on the matter earlier this week, advising the ministry to “engage in direct discussions without preconditions to address the ongoing industrial directives affecting students with special educational needs” after concluding that the ministry failed to take all reasonable measures to resolve the dispute.

The union’s directives, one of which ordered LSEs to refuse to replace anyone who called in sick, were issued at the beginning of the scholastic year due to what the union described as a “massive shortage” of LSEs and the government’s unwillingness to engage with it.

This disagreement between UPE and the Education Ministry is only the latest example of a sector that is regularly disrupted by union directives. The existence of two unions in the sector – the UPE and the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) – further complicates matters, especially since the ministry insists that the MUT is the sole trade union responsible for the sector.

The Ombudsman’s Office was roped into this latest dispute after a mother of a 7-year-old student could not send her child to school because no LSE was available to care for their needs, leading her to file a complaint.

In his final opinion, Education Commissioner Vincent De Gaetano noted that “this was not the first complaint” he had received about children who need LSE support being unable to attend school because no LSE was available, noting that a separate investigation about the matter remains ongoing.

In a press release accompanying the Commissioner’s conclusions, De Gaetano noted that the final opinion was sent to the Education Ministry on 17 September, with no reply or feedback received by the commissioner’s office.

The case was referred to the prime minister’s office on 2 October. After it became clear that no corrective action was taken to address the ongoing dispute, the Ombudsman’s Office forwarded the file to the Parliamentary Speaker on 17 October.

The dispute has been ongoing since January. After the UPE issued its directives, the Education Ministry filed a warrant for a prohibitory injunction in court, arguing that the union’s directives were unreasonable and disproportionate.

Last week, the court rejected the government’s request, allowing the union to reinstate its directives while the situation in classrooms across the island continued to deteriorate.

In his final opinion, the Education Commissioner outlined how both sides dug in their heels throughout the entire dispute. While the ministry argued that it did attempt to engage with the UPE, the union expressed the exact opposite, leading to the “entrenchment” of each party’s position.

“There is no doubt that the appropriate director general ( at the Education Ministry) did engage valiantly in copious email correspondence with the UPE, but, as usually happens when entrenchment prevails over ideas, most messages got lost in the ethernet,” the final opinion states.

“There is also no doubt, as the office of the permanent secretary contends, that the UPE has taken a militant stance verging on the unreasonable; but this has also to be seen in the context of what can best be described, in anodyne language, as the reluctance of the office of the permanent secretary to engage closely and effectively with the UPE, preferring to consider it as some ‘second class’ union,” it continues.

While the commissioner repeatedly emphasised that his office was not empowered to investigate union activity and that the union’s actions did ultimately end up causing “disproportionate harm” to students who were most vulnerable to it, De Gaetano concluded that the Education Ministry failed to exhaust all options and that it should invite the union to negotiate immediately and “without preconditions.”