Prelude to the emergence of an organised teaching corps : a socio-historical study of the teaching profession in Malta, 1800-1919

Abstract

The teaching profession as formally recognised by the Maltese State is a recent one. Teachers have been officially regarded as forming part of a professional body only since the Education Act of 1988 (Act No. XXIV of 1988). This parliamentary decision was the result of many decades of work by teachers to achieve national esteem for their occupation and in emulation of their colleagues in other developed countries. The process towards such a status was long and chequered. This study aims at tracing the socio-historical process from the formation of an embryonic teacher body in the first part of the nineteenth century to its consolidation and unity through unionisation with the birth of the Malta Union of Teachers in November 1919. The study of this process has been built up through the analysis of the voluminous official documentation from Government files both in Malta and at the Public Record Office, Kew, along with the equally substantial printed sources pertaining to the period of the study. This analysis aims at bringing to life the teachers' work, aspirations, hardships and development as entrenched in the social, political and economic life of Malta as an island colony within the British Empire with all that this entailed. The aim of such an investigation is ultimately to help researchers of education and especially of the teacher in Malta to comprehend the circumstances which are at the base of the present situation.