A renaissance for the Maltese family

The Maltese family is facing formidable challenges as it confronts the uncertainties of living in the first part of the 21st century. Changing patterns of population, employment and morality are inevitable in a competitive economy in a state of rapid change.

As is the case in most other western countries, the rapid economic changes being experienced in our country over the past few decades, compounded by the phenomenon of globalisation, have brought a heavy social cost in terms of disrupted families and the break up of the extended family and the invaluable support that it gives to young and inexperienced child rearers.

Our families are increasingly facing moral uncertainties and confusion, and are often overwhelmed by the desire to acquire more and more goods in order to maintain one's status and esteem in society to the exclusion of less tangible goods.

While the solution to these new challenges of the post modern family is not to try and reverse the clock back to what it is perceived to be "the good old days", we need to promote a renaissance of the values that strengthen the stability of the family.

Unfortunately, far too many politicians believe, even if they do not admit it openly, that there is no such thing as society, but only individual men and women and their families. In fact, families often come as an afterthought in their philosophy.

I will not attempt to define what a family means at this stage. I will only state that there are different forms and models of families.

They do not all face the same challenges, and it will be a mistake to limit a political party's family policy to cater mainly for the underclass of our society which is often equated to the dysfunctional and vulnerable families.

However, much such families deserve special and urgent political attention, we should not lose sight of the fact that "normal" families too need to rely on a pro-family political agenda. Only in this way can the socio economic ambitions of a government be achieved, and wealth created to enable more support for all members of our society.

The Labour Party approach to strengthening the Maltese family is based on five priorities.

The first priority is to improve educational achievement among low socio-economic groups, while at the same time encourage all other family units to strive for excellence in the education of their children. We are at present the holders of a shameful record of low achievement by our young people, 42 per cent of whom are leaving the educational system with less than basic education. These youngsters are risking becoming unemployable, unless we do something to remedy this situation before it is too late.

But we are failing equally miserably in the field of tertiary education. Our university is churning out graduates who have studied subjects for which there is no demand. And yet we are short of engineering, science, IT and mathematics graduates which are so badly needed if we are to modernise our economy to face the challenges of globalisation.

The second priority is closely connected to the first. We need to increase opportunities for people to participate in sustainable employment. This can only be achieved if we revamp our educational system. Despite the enormous amount of money spent on education we are not performing well in this sector.

We need to increase the employment prospects of our youngsters by coaching the most disadvantaged students and their families to move out of the vicious circle of illiteracy and poverty by learning a skill or trade that opens the doors of employment. At the same time we need to encourage those students coming from more stable families to study subjects for which there is likely to be an economic demand.

The third priority is to promote a healthy lifestyle. Families living on the poverty line are often the ones that suffer most from ill health.

Their children are fed diets that in the long-term lead to illnesses that further complicate their social and economic prospects. I disagree that it is not government's role to promote a healthy lifestyle and that this matter should be left to individual families. The health of our future generation is too important to let it be jeopardised by the economic interests of big business whose main interest is to make quick profits, even at the expense of ruining our young people's health.

The fourth priority is the reduction of alcohol, tobacco and other substance abuse among our youngsters. These problems are not found only among families in distress.

So called middle-class families are increasingly confronting these problems, perhaps as a result that in today's globalised economy no particular sector of our society is immune to threats to our future prosperity.

The fifth priority is to minimise family violence and abuse and neglect of children and older persons. It is a sad reality that respect for children, women and older people has diminished considerably over the past several decades. We need a renaissance of these family values if we are to prosper in future.

Economic well-being is both a cause and an effect of the state of health of our society. Unfortunately Maltese society is increasingly becoming characterised by inequality.

A future Labour government will try to diminish this inequality by sustaining and supporting the vulnerable families in our society to leave the vicious circle of ignorance and poverty. At the same time we will strive to ease the burden on other families who are coping with the challenges of modern life but need acknowledgement and sympathetic policies to continue to thrive.

Dr Mangion is MLP deputy leader for parliamentary affairs.