Our students can’t read – Labour is delighted

Almost half (48%) of Malta’s 15-year-olds can’t read. Only just over half (56%) are able to count properly.  Those are the damning results emerging from the OECD 2015 PISA score tests. Thirteen years of Labour government have dragged down the level of literacy and numeracy in our students to the worst level for years.

Students educated under the last PN government scored 30 points higher in science, 32 points higher in maths and 32 points higher in reading. Under Labour, literacy and numeracy in our 15-year-olds is amongst the lowest in Europe.  Even worse, in just three years (2022 to 2025) science performance dropped by a staggering 13 points.  In maths, the deterioration has been unbelievable – a full 27 points in just 3 years.  Malta is the country where numeracy deteriorated the most, placing 46^th out of 46 countries.  The deterioration in literacy has been equally shocking.  Maltese students dropped 31 points, placing Malta 47^th out of 50 countries.

Boys are significantly worse off than girls.  Boys scored 47 points lower than girls at reading. That discrepancy is amongst the worst, placing Malta 83^rd out of 87 countries.  Boys’ reading ability dropped 34 points since 2015 – that’s the equivalent of almost 2 years of learning.

Overall, Maltese students rank 46 points lower than the OECD average at reading. Malta ranks 24^th out of 27 EU countries.  Only Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus performed worse at reading.

What’s even more alarming than those figures is that our Labour government hasn’t even reacted. Faced with a catastrophe of this proportion, Labour is busy handing out a 3 million euro direct contract to Robert Abela’s business partners, the Bonnici brothers, to resurface a karting track at Hal Far. Labour has no solution – certainly not with rookie Byron Camilleri as Education minister.  Mind you, Clifton Grima, Jutyne Caruana and Owen Bonnici weren’t any better. They engineered this disaster.

Labour is producing a generation that can’t count and can’t read.  And Labour couldn’t be happier.  That’s a guarantee of many more Labour victories.  Because reading is the antidote to propaganda.  It is what allows citizens to resist manipulation, see through the misinformation and make choices rooted in an understanding of complex facts rather than on deceitful pro-Labour TikTok videos and ONE headlines. Reading is what cultivates questioning, listening, dialogue and logical decision-making.  These are essential democratic skills. They are requisites for a healthy, strong democracy.  They protect us from the slide towards authoritarianism.

But the ability to read isn’t simply a cultural value.  It’s not some outdated posh luxury that is the preserve of a hated intellectual elite.   It is also an essential economic value.

Those dismal PISA scores are not the full measure of our 15-year-olds.  But they are the best predictor of desirable outcomes and a shield against many of the worst possible ones.  Those who perform badly in those PISA tests – practically half of our students – will tend to earn less, live shorter sicker lives and are significantly more likely to commit more crimes.  Dropping PISA scores by a mere quarter of a standard deviation decreases Labour’s hallowed GDP by half a percentage point. What that means is that Malta’s fragile economic situation will only get worse.  And we know what Labour’s solution to that problem will be  – import more foreign workers to maintain the lifeline of economic growth.

On the other hand, the death of reading is a gift to authoritarian leaders. A population unable to read can be controlled far more easily. In the past dictators burnt books to deprive their populations of the freedom to read. Labour won’t have to do that because very soon a significant proportion of our population will simply be unable to read any books even if they were available. Censorship is no longer necessary if the bulk of the population is illiterate or semi literate.

Over the years Labour has been gradually bringing down the standards of local examinations in order to brag that more students are passing their MATSEC exams. Labour brought in a hybrid system where results were based on school based assessments and not just examination performance in order to artificially inflate pass rates. This was done under the pretext of reducing exam anxiety for students. MATSEC results seem like they’ve remained stable but in fact, as the OECD PISA results show, literacy and numeracy have plummeted.

In 2009 England’s pupils barely scraped into the world’s top 30 in maths and reading in those PISA scores. Now they sit in the top ten.  What changed? England went back to old fashioned exams, tough inspections and fact-filled curricula.  Labour did the opposite. That may be, at least in part, to blame for the dramatic deterioration in Maltese students’ results.

Labour can continue to fool the people about the skills of our students and the amazing progress in our education system.  But that won’t protect us from a deterioration in competitiveness compared to our competitors.  Malta’s strength isn’t a wealth of natural resources.  Malta’s only strength was the education level of its workforce and its command of the English language.  Now Labour is rapidly destroying that single most precious attraction to foreign investment. Labour is squandering that priceless commodity of literacy, particularly in the language of trade, commerce and AI – English.

Labour happily pilfers state coffers to mount extravagant spectacles to herald its Malta Vision 2050.  But those PISA results are a harbinger of what Malta’s future really holds – and its not glamour, health and prosperity.  It’s illiteracy and a deteriorating political landscape.

In his book “The New Dark Ages”, James Marriott wrote “Mass literacy is a recent phenomenon, so is mass democracy.  We simply don’t know whether one can survive without the other”.

Based on those rapidly deteriorating PISA scores, Malta is moving closer and closer towards a Labour future with echoes of a dark Labour past.  The only difference will be that there will be no need to burn down newspaper offices because we would have long stopped reading any newspapers – we’ll all be watching pro-Labour TikToks produced by a network of fake news accounts.