Malta Dyslexia Association talk on difficulties in learning maths

“I Counted on My Fingers Until Sixth Form” – Malta Dyslexia Association Shatters Maths Shame

Valletta – On a humid Thursday evening, the old torch-lit hall of the Casino Maltese filled with parents clutching supermarket-brand calculators and teachers still dusted with chalk. They had come to hear the Malta Dyslexia Association (MDA) deliver a talk whose title alone felt like a confession: *“When Numbers Won’t Behave – Maths Anxiety & Dyslexia in Maltese Classrooms.”*

By the time MDA president Dr. Tanya Camilleri clicked to her opening slide—a Times of Malta 1998 clipping headlined *“Malta Bottom of EU in Maths”*—half the room was already nodding. Everyone, it seemed, had a war story.

Island of Saints, Sum of Struggles
Malta’s national obsession with “passing” maths is baked into everything from SEC O-level results to the civil-service promotion exam that still decides who gets a desk overlooking Grand Harbour. Yet, according to Eurostat, 36 % of Maltese 15-year-olds score below functional numeracy—double the EU median. For dyslexic learners, the figure leaps to 68 %.

Dr. Camilleri, a former St. Aloysius College student who herself repeated Form 3 twice, put it bluntly: *“We live on a rock where your worth is measured in three things: your church feast budget, your property airspace, and whether you got a C in maths. If you don’t, you’re labelled ‘ħelu imma ħej’—nice but useless.”*

Laughter rippled, but it was the nervous kind.

From Abacus to Apps – A Local Toolkit
The association unveiled a three-pronged plan tailored to Malta’s micro-reality:

1. Translated Terminology Cards – Colour-coded Maltese-English cards that finally standardise *“take-away”* versus *“naqqas”*, ending the mixed-language muddle that confuses dyslexic children who already struggle with symbol reversal.
2. Mobile ‘Numeracy Bus’ – A second-hand Arriva vehicle, repainted in MDA teal, will tour villages from Mellieħa to Marsaxlokk offering multisensory maths sessions using Maltese pastizzi to teach fractions. (One test run in Għarb saw a 12-year-old declare, *“So ¾ is basically three ricotta corners!”*)
3. Teacher-Shadowing Bursaries – Funded by Bank of Valletta’s CSR arm, 50 educators will spend a term in Leeds, whose dyslexia-friendly maths curriculum cut failure rates by 22 %, then return to mentor colleagues across Malta’s 10 college networks.

Cultural Ghosts in the Classroom
During Q&A, a grandmother from Żejtun stood up. *“My grandson still gets hit on the knuckles with a ruler for using his fingers. The nun says it’s ‘għażż ta’ Maltese’—a Maltese disgrace. But you just told us finger-counting is a validated strategy.”*

Applause exploded. The moment crystallised a deeper tension: Malta’s post-war education ethic prizes rote recitation of times tables the way earlier generations memorised catechism. Dyslexic deviations are still read as moral failings.

Community Ripples
By Friday morning the talk had 14 000 Facebook views—viral by Maltese standards. The Education Ministry issued a statement praising the MDA and promising *“immediate pilot implementation”* in three state schools. Meanwhile, private tuition centres in Sliema rushed to rebrand their summer flyers: *“Dyslexia-friendly maths – now with pastizzi!”*

But perhaps the biggest shift was quieter. 17-year-old Sven Pace, who had barely slept after reliving every maths meltdown of his school life, walked into the University of Malta’s access-disability office and requested extra-time registration for September’s MATSEC resits. *“For the first time I didn’t feel like a fraud,”* he told *Hot Malta*. *“I felt Maltese enough.”*

Conclusion
Malta will always measure itself in numbers—tourist arrivals, blockchain licences, Air Malta’s losses. Yet the most important ledger is the one where children learn they count. Thanks to a repurposed bus, some pastizzi, and a hall full of reformed finger-counters, that ledger just got a little easier to balance.