Union registers dispute over shortage of learning support educators
Union registers dispute over shortage of learning support educators
By Hot Malta Staff
Valletta – The Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) has officially registered a trade dispute with the Education Ministry, warning that the “chronic” shortage of learning-support educators (LSEs) is pushing children with special needs to the margins of the classroom—and pushing their own members to the brink of burnout.
In a strongly-worded letter delivered to Permanent Secretary Frank Fabri on Monday, the union quotes government figures showing 1,076 LSE posts funded but only 869 actually filled. The gap, says MUT president Marco Bonnici, translates into 207 children who start every school day without the one-to-one assistant they are legally entitled to under Malta’s 2018 Inclusion Act.
“Behind the statistic is a child who cannot write his name, a girl who needs help feeding herself at lunch, a boy who bolts for the gate if no-one is watching,” Bonnici told reporters outside the ministry’s Floriana headquarters. “We are not talking about a luxury add-on; we are talking about a statutory right.”
The dispute lands at a delicate moment. Malta is still basking in international praise for its 2022 EU-wide success in halving early-school-leaver rates to 8.9 %. Yet educators say the headline masks a quieter exodus: LSEs who love the job but cannot survive on €18,000 a year, or who leave after being shuffled between three schools in as many years.
Sliema mother-of-two Daniela Camilleri knows the numbers by heart. Her eight-year-old son, Luke, is on the autism spectrum and has been waiting for a dedicated LSE since November. “The school head did what she could—borrowed staff from kindergarten, asked parent volunteers to step in,” Camilleri says. “But you cannot crowd-source inclusion. Luke regressed; he started biting his arm again. We kept him home for two weeks because it felt safer.”
Stories like Camilleri’s are increasingly common in staff-room WhatsApp groups, where teachers swap photos of empty LSE timetables scrawled with red marker. One video, seen by this newsroom, shows a Grade 4 class in Żejtun where the teacher has parked a wheelchair-bound pupil next to the door because no assistant is free to help transfer her to the toilet.
Education Minister Clifton Grima reacted within hours of the dispute being filed, announcing a fresh call for 120 LSE recruits and a €3,000 retention bonus spread over three years. The union calls the package “a plaster on a haemorrhage”.
Cultural stakes run deeper than salary. Maltese society prides itself on tight-knit extended families and Catholic-inspired solidarity; the idea that the state might fail its most vulnerable cuts against the grain of the island’s self-image. Festa season, which kicks off this weekend in Żurrieq, will see bands march past banners proclaiming “Nitilqux lil ħadd wara” (We leave no-one behind). Yet educators ask how that slogan squares with classrooms where children are literally left behind because no LSE turned up.
Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo was quick to boast last week that Malta welcomed 2.9 million visitors in 2023. Critics counter that the same labour market which lures waiters to five-star hotels is siphoning off potential LSEs. “A 19-year-old with a childcare Level 3 certificate can earn €1,400 a month plus tips serving cocktails in St Julian’s,” says primary teacher Ramona Attard. “Why would she wipe yoghurt off a six-year-old’s face for €900?”
The dispute procedure gives the ministry 15 working days to open formal negotiations. If talks collapse, the union could ballot for industrial action—something never before taken against special-needs provision. Parents fear escalation but quietly support it. “We don’t want strikes,” Camilleri admits, “but maybe a national day of ‘inverted inclusion’ where ministers have to spend a morning in class without LSEs would open eyes.”
Meanwhile, private Facebook groups such as “Malta LSE Swap Shop” buzz with barter offers: “I’ll cover your Qormi morning if you do my afternoon in Marsaxlokk.” The posts read like gallows humour, but they illustrate a system running on goodwill rather than governance.
Conclusion
Malta has legislated inclusion, built ramps and installed lifts; it has even put braille on festa titina wrappers. Yet without the human bridge of a learning-support educator, those structural gains risk becoming Instagram-friendly optics rather than lived reality. The MUT dispute is therefore more than a labour grievance—it is a referendum on whether Maltese compassion ends at the parish-bar doorstep or actually reaches the classroom desk. If the ministry cannot plug the 207-person gap, the next national statistic risks being the number of families who give up on state schooling altogether.
