Education for the future

Every country has to have a major slant in its education process that will be for the great benefit of that country.

In our country, the slant must be the awareness of our environment and the need to keep our country to a standard, both physical and social, that will allow us to welcome visitors with pride and so safeguard our future.

All future jobs in Malta and Gozo will depend on outsiders wishing to come here for one reason or another and to leave money in Malta and, at the same time, employ people or cause people to be gainfully employed.

Our whole way of teaching must be organised, and I stress organised, to get the message into the heads of our children, from kindergarten up to university, that Malta is their only livelihood and they must respect it and look after it.

When I expressed my ideas about this subject to the Minister of Education, Louis Galea, he immediately understood this very important principle and a meeting with all the education heads was arranged. This took place and the principle was discussed in detail. The education heads then explained the work they were already doing in this regard and were almost defensive in their attitude. This is understandable; after all, who was this estate agent that was telling them how to run their departments?

The work that the education department is presently doing to teach the children the importance of looking after their country is good but it does not go far enough to achieve the acute awareness by the pupils that looking after their country is so vital for their future.

We have had two or three generations that have grown up with a totally wrong attitude towards Malta. Generations that have changed our culture to one of apathy and couldn't care less attitudes, that have reduced our standards considerably.

In my opinion the education department is only doing a fraction of the work needed to instill in the minds of our children the importance of looking after Malta. Of looking after their future livelihood.

Today, we have 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds who couldn't care less about their surroundings. About their attitudes towards outsiders. About friendliness and honesty towards our foreign guests. This friendly culture was there and it was to our great advantage, but over the years it has been eroded to the extent that we have a culture problem that has to be sorted out fast because we have a lot of competition ahead of us and we must be prepared.

We must get the children of today to understand that now, and in the future, we only have the very islands we live in to support us. We have no natural resources, we only have ourselves, the sea and the sun. If we ruin Malta, then we have nothing and we are in deep trouble.

We have gone past the subtle stage of teaching our children these facts of life; we must now be hard hitting and come straight to the point.

If they learn writing, let them write about the good things in Malta and the needs that our country has. If they learn maths and maths problems, then let these lessons and problems reflect our country's problems. Indoctrinate them about our fine history and the need to keep and protect what their ancestors left them. If they go on school outings and trips, then let these outings include the bad side of Malta, such as rubbish dumps and vandalism, so that they can see the damage that is being done.

Let us completely re-arrange our schoolbooks and our teaching strategies in order to have these very important slants towards their future attitudes and behaviour heavily incorporated.

We will soon be in Europe and this will not mean that we will have a secure and friendly blanket to wrap around us and protect us. It will mean that we will be equal with all the big players and, therefore, we will have to compete.

We must immediately start this vital education process and continue it over a very long term so that it will give us, in the short, medium, and long term, a new generation of Maltese who will have the correct attitude for us to compete well with our equals and to create a country we can all be proud of in the future.

Mr Salt is an estate agent and a former chairman of the Malta Tourism Authority's product planning and development directorate.