What has FELTOM Achieved in Malta and Gozo?

Academic Standards

Internally

The Academic Code of Conduct

This document is what makes FELTOM. It:

1. ● ensures that all member schools engage a professional and fully qualified Director of Studies
2. ● stipulates and lists the professional qualifications and responsibilities of the Director of Studies
3. ● stipulates and lists the professional qualifications and responsibilities of the teachers
4. provides clear guidelines on teaching methodology, certification, premises and facilities
5. includes directions for enforcement. 

The Student Welfare Code of Conduct

This requires that each member school:

• ● engages staff with specific responsibility for student welfare
• ● observes stipulated hospitality regulations
• ● enters into a written agreement with its host families based on a specimen agreement that contains the more important points on student accommodation

Nationally

1996 - 1998

• · FELTOM’s insistent lobbying with the government of Malta led to specific legislation regulating the running of EFL schools locally and the provision of English language courses to foreign students
• ● Legal Notice 60 of 1996 was modeled upon the FELTOM Codes of conduct
• ● FELTOM lobbied government to establish a national EFL Monitoring Board with representation from the Ministries of Education and of Tourism, the University of Malta, the Association representing the EFL schools - FELTOM - and an elected representative of all licensed EFL schools
• ● EFL Monitoring Board legally constituted in 1996· FELTOM lobbied in favour of granting the EFL Monitoring Board Ministerial executive powers on all matters pertaining to EFL schools
• ● Executive powers were granted to the EFL Schools Monitoring Board by Decree of the Minister responsible for Education on the 13th May 1998 by virtue of the Education Act 1988
• ● FELTOM undertakes a leading role in the workings of the EFL Schools Monitoring Board including the drafting of all guidelines and regulations necessary for the smooth and beneficial running of the EFL profession and industry in Malta, and the piloting of projects
• ● FELTOM offered a series of teacher training courses in EFL methodology on a national scale
• ● FELTOM actively promoted the professional aspect of teaching English as a foreign language and created a national awareness which led to the creation of MATEFL - the Malta Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language as a professional association

Student Welfare

Extensive consultation meetings with host-families led to the identification of necessary measures aimed at enhancing and improving the hospitality aspect of English language stays

• This resulted in FELTOM’s constant lobbying with the Maltese government to introduce more specific legislation that regulates the hosting of English language students in families
• The Minister for Tourism finally accepted FELTOM’s recommendations in 2002 and worked through the appropriate mechanisms of the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA), to promulgate regulations as a legal notice which draws heavily on FELTOM’s Code of Conduct for Student Welfare
• FELTOM regularly contributes its expertise and support to the MTA in its efforts to promote English language courses to enhance the inflow of tourists to the island
• FELTOM holds regular consultative status to the MTA

FELTOM

In conclusion, FELTOM

• continues to provide Malta with a professional platform from which it successfully projects itself as an English language learning destination that offers quality schools
• furnishes students attending member schools with an efficient redress mechanism
• ensures peace of mind to each prospective student who opts to follow a course of study in English at a FELTOM member school.