Shared values, cultural diversity and education :
What to learn and how ?

Creating the Future Together

Malta

« Creating The Future Together » is the name of the new and holistic National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) built by Malta. It is the result of much consultation and thought and is breaking of a new dawn in the field of Maltese Education. The NMC is designed to meet particular needs of every individual student. Like previous documents, it looks also at the needs of knowledge and shows the commitment to safeguard standards. Where it may differ quite remarkably from previous documents is in its great emphasis on the importance of skills, competences, attitudes and values, not merely on knowledge and information.

As a continuity of the unique Maltese culture from the past to the Maltese culture of the future, the NMC is a framework establishing parameters within which every school will be empowered to design and propose educational provisions.
One main characteristic of this document is that it places the needs of the learner before everything else. Equally interwoven in its aims and provisions is the celebration of diversity: the holistic spirit of the document embraces the diversity of learning styles as well as the whole range of abilities, backgrounds, specific learning difficulties, and special needs that are bound to exist among a community of learners.

The reason for a new curriculum is that in the new culture:
(i) the primary aim of assessment will be the feedback of teaching and learning strategies and methods
(ii) it's essential to look for what learners can do rather than segregate and exclude them based on what they cannot do
(iii) the learners can participate in self-assessment as they come to make more choices and decisions in their learning.
The authorities are being urged to bring about all the necessary changes, they will be for the best interest of students and children.

Mary Vella
Director of Curriculum
Ministry of Education
Floriana CMR 02 - Malta
E-mail : Mary.vella@magnet.mt

Institutional Partners
Malta Union of Teachers, Parents, Association of School Councils

Implementation of the curriculum with effect from 2000