How successfully are we educating Rita?

The 1983 film Educating Rita, by screenwriter Willy Russell, posed the philosophical question about the value of formal education in achieving a better quality of life. Commenting on the film, John K. Bramann wrote: "Education is the emancipation of a person from a sate of being a mere extension of a given environment to an active agent who can choose who she or he will be: a potential creator of his or her own world".

Today we find ourselves asking the same basic question about the relevance of a proper education in the general context of a nation that is trying to renew itself to be able to face the challenges of globalisation. As politicians we have the grave responsibility of creating the opportunities for all our citizens to have a choice to invest in their education, not only as a means of achieving personal fulfilment, but also to enable them to provide adequately for the physical well-being of themselves and their families.

What we need now is not yet more diagnostic papers on our educational system or, even worse, rhetorical exhortations by the Prime Minister about the importance that Maltese families should give to the education of their children. What we need is to mobilise political will and the required resources to achieve our goal of sustainable development through a system based on the individual education of each person.

Education is not only a basic human right but also a means of development. It enables our citizens to improve the quality of their lives, avoid the traps of poverty, and helps our nation to prosper. But education will only become an achievable right for most people if we help our families to improve their financial situation to be able to concentrate on other priorities, like education, rather than continuously struggle to survive.

We, as politicians, would be dishonest with ourselves and with those whom we represent if we judge our performance in improving our educational system solely by the amount of money we spend on education, the number of schools we build or refurbish, or the number of students that enrol in tertiary education.

We need to ask ourselves some tough questions like: How effective are we being in re-educating adults to make them employable again after losing their jobs as a result of restructuring of their employers' business? Or why is our educational system still producing thousands of young people without basic literacy and numeric skills thereby leading them to the dole queues with little or no chance of finding meaningful employment?

Let us by all means revise our school, university and technical institutes' curricula and promote more the teaching of the subjects that are much more in demand in a modern economy like, information and communication technology, engineering, and management. But let us not forget to tackle other even more important issues like effectively addressing the causes that are making most of those seeking work unemployable.

In our future plans for our educational system we need to move away from the one-size-fits-all model to the right mix and fit to meet the individual needs of each person. One can hardly disagree with the generic exhortations of the government to put education on the forefront of each family's priorities.

But we cannot forget that just a few years ago this same government was creating a false sense of security and well-being by promising heaven on earth to all students who decided to go to the university to study whatever subject was on offer because the imminent EU membership would automatically guarantee unlimited employment opportunities.

The MLP will work closely with all the stakeholders in our educational system to ensure that the money we spend in educating our students and adult workers produces effective results.

We will not judge our success solely by the money we spend on education because we know that leakages of funds and over spending can easily mislead us into thinking that we are being successful.

Our success will be mainly measured by the number of workers who will find viable employment because their skills have been upgraded to match the job vacancies which new investment will create.

In the present economic environment we can no longer target education mainly for children and youth, even if this remains a priority. We must promote life-long learning by every worker to acquire new knowledge and skills.

We are still failing to achieve this aim, and a new Labour government will tackle the social, economic, and cultural issues which can help us to be more successful in educating our workforce and build a more viable economy.

Dr Mangion is deputy leader of the Malta Labour Party and main spokesman for the economy and finance.