I congratulate all those local and foreign students and helpers and organisers for the exhibits and efforts at the Expo Science Med (2006) erected on university grounds.

The Sunday Times last week highlighted the enthusiasm of five Maltese students whose dream came true when building a real microlight aircraft for their Systems of Knowledge technical project, which will help them qualify to enter University.

During the past 14 years, over 20,000 Systems of Knowledge projects with their invisible beauty were submitted at the schools, as part entry requirements for our University. Most finished on the rubbish heap instead of being used in exhibitions which would have encouraged our students to follow the suggestions of the governor of the Central Bank.

Mr Michael Bonello was reported to have advised "to better the resources allowed in productivity-enhancing activities and particularly to research and development investment and to better the skill levels of the labour force to attract high value added foreign investment".

Over 12 years ago some keen members of the University were building an aircraft at one of the University-related colleges with the intention of flying non-stop from Malta to the US and then to start local production for such aircraft with the related carbon fibre technology, generating employment for 50 very skilled people.

Unfortunately, some members of the teaching profession preferred to use the rooms for classes, libraries, gyms, and artistic projects, and so the project had to stop. Up to this day the governor of the Central Bank is being inhibited in his calling for high value added developments in Malta, by teachers and parents and students, advocating lessons in classrooms and artistic creations in art studios rather than scientific discoveries in laboratories and workshops and computer interfacing projects.

Some classical teachers in Malta and in Europe still refer to "economy-related education" as a "capitalist education" and prefer to dream away that classical education would eventually persuade the governor of the Central Bank to apologise for his recent statements and to preach that the old classical most popular and liberal subjects and a few courses in pedagogy would elevate the skills of the Maltese workforce and stop the government from performing a "critical review" on public spending in areas including, social welfare, education and health and pensions.

The Central Bank governor stated that EU funds are likely to decline after 2013, where the financial burden has to be shouldered by our students emerging from the University, MCAST, and other schools, all working in the newly created wealth-generating haciendas other than "Dockyards, textiles, chocolate factories, simple uncompetitive manual crafts or subsidised companies, protected local wares and mass tourism".

While all students and teachers should aim for a minimum curriculum, some should be allowed and encouraged to aim for higher levels reaching maximum curricula, even if this involves the courage to take risks and to develop qualities to work in unknown fields. Education is a field where democracy and the opinion of the majority of students, teachers, and parents is not always the right one to select.

Recently Bill Gates of Microsoft said: "Look after your few nerds, someday you shall be working for them". In any society, clever nerds and private employers are a minority and difficult to evolve when regulated by laws made by the majority who are normally employees.