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.