Anti-racist education discussed at Grundtvig seminar

A recent international seminar organised by the University of Malta's Socrates Office heard suggestions by two leading academics on how Malta could strengthen anti-racist education in schools.

Dr Carmel Borg and Dr Peter Mayo, from the University of Malta's Faculty of Education, presented a paper on xenophobia in the three-day Grundtvig seminar which also discussed European integration, active citizenship and adult learning.

Grundtvig is one of the EU's Socrates programmes and is aimed at enhancing adult education and lifelong learning through European cooperation.

One of the aims of the 'contact seminar', held at the Crowne Plaza in Sliema, was to create strong partnerships under Grundtvig based on good quality and innovative ideas in the areas discussed.

In their presentation, Drs Borg and Mayo said the new National Miniumum Curriculum was a good starting point for an anti-racist education, in that it aimed at socialising students into a "pluralistic, democratic and socially inclusive society".

But they went further by proposing a "genuine anti-racist project" at all levels in schools.

No new subjects would be created, but at primary level, for example, children would familiarise themselves with international children's literature and with the history and development of local and regional traditions.

This would help them "develop a positive attitude towards cultures, the will to learn from the experiences of different cultures, and the will to resist different forms of prejudices, intolerance and discrimination".

At the secondary level, an anti-racist pedagogy would involve scrutinising the personal and social experience of students "in the hope that this self-reflection would lead to personal transformation and concrete action".

The authors also suggested the inclusion of an anti-racist agenda in the school's development plan and the creation of a programme of teacher education inspired by action research into their attitudes toward different ethnic and racial groups and their level of awareness of different facets of Maltese racism.

The theme of xenophobia was also dealt with by British High Commissioner Vincent Fean, French Ambassador Didier Destremau and Tunisian ambassador Abdessalem Hetira.

The seminar was attended by 75 participants from 19 EU member and pre-accession countries, together with several representatives from various Maltese entities and organisations.

A social event entitled 'European Aperitif: Who are We? Who are they?' gave all participants the opportunity to represent their own country by displaying traditional specialties and delicacies. Malta's stand, sponsored by Ir-Razzett l-Antik, Qormi, proved to be very popular.