Ethics to be option for all 13-year-olds as O-level candidates grow by 32%

The number of students registering for the O-level exam in ethics has increased by a staggering 32% between 2023 and 2024, with 738 candidates taking up the subject.

Official statistics show that the number of ethics students has been constantly increasing since 2018 from just 38 who first sat for the exam.

Ethics is currently only available to students whose parents opt out of Catholic religious education (CRE), but a new National Strategy for Education is proposing making ethics an option to CRE students at Year-9 (13 years of age), without having to drop out of religion. A number of independent schools have already gone further by offering both religion and ethics in parallel to all students, even to early-year pupils.

Official statistics suggest that the growth in interest in ethics has not been achieved at the cost of religious instruction: The increase in candidates sitting for CRE has remained stable, declining from 3,123 in 2021 to 2,839 in 2023 only to rise again to 2,990 in 2024.

The primary aim of the ethics programme is that of providing students with a “moral education” and ensure that they can “think and deal reflectively with moral matters, to understand the moral issues they will encounter in their daily lives as adult members of Maltese society and of the world human community.”

Students are also taught to exercise “practical wisdom in articulating their moral judgement, to understand and tolerate cultures, life-styles, outlooks, and life choices different from their own” and to offer solidarity to those in their community and elsewhere who suffer injustice and to respect and support “human rights, social justice, and democratic practice”.

Why more students are choosing ethics

Dr Lucianne Zammit, a lecturer at the University of Malta and coordinator of the Teaching Ethics in Schools Platform told MaltaToday that ever since ethics was introduced in 2014 through a gradual rollout, the number of students choosing the subject has been increasing steadily each year.

“This growth, in my view, is largely due to a highly relevant and contemporary syllabus for moral education that is based on critical thinking, covering topics such as AI and digital ethics, environmental ethics, cyberbullying, and misinformation.”

Moreover, the secondary school syllabus also deals with the ethical responsibilities associated with voting, emphasising the importance of informed decision-making to counter misinformation. “This focus is particularly timely given the recent lowering of the voting age to sixteen, which coincides with the end of compulsory schooling.”

According to Zammit, students find Ethics valuable for their personal development, as it equips them with the” reasoning skills and awareness needed in both civic and personal contexts”.

Moreover, while recognising that ethics is a popular choice among children of non-Maltese residents, it is also being widely chosen by Maltese students, with the national and MATSEC examination papers offered in both Maltese and English.

Even examiners are noting that students are finding the subject engaging, with an SEC exam report noting the performance of such candidates “demonstrated a strong engagement with the material, particularly in areas related to practical ethical issues”.

Moreover, the majority of candidates showed a commendable understanding of the fundamental ethical concepts and were able to articulate their thoughts clearly in both the multiple-choice and essay sections.

For example, when writing an essay on bullying the vast majority of candidates provided real-life strategies to discourage and address bullying. “Strong essays incorporated ethical virtues such as empathy and linked the discussion to important concepts like the ethics of care and self-esteem,” the report says.

And when quizzed on animal rights examiners even found “some standout essays” which discussed “advanced concepts such as sentience, speciesism, the role of PETA, and the notion of animals’ voicelessness”.

The way forward

Ethics was originally introduced in the 2012 National Curriculum Framework as an alternative for parents who wished to withdraw their children from Catholic religious education. But since then, ethics has gained popularity with a broad range of students.

According to Zammit, this appeal “stems from its focus on pressing ethical issues affecting society and the engaging teaching methodologies that emphasise class discussions and critical thinking.”

She notes that many parents and students have expressed the wish for ethics to be available to all students without requiring withdrawal from CRE.

One of the measures in the newly launched National Education Strategy is to make ethics available as an optional subject for all students in Year 9 (Form 3).

This change will allow secondary school students to continue studying CRE while also choosing ethics as one of their option subjects.  “In my opinion, all students at all educational levels should have the opportunity to study ethics alongside CRE, without the need to choose one over the other,” Zammit said.