Don't play political games with education

Carmelo Abela is a politician. He does what politicians do. He stands my arguments on their head and uses them to score his political points (February 29). I don't care to play politics this way, nor do I think that political games should be played with education where the lives of people and the country's future are at stake.

This is why I believe that any serious reform to the educational system at whatever level should be thought through carefully and worked out in detail before it is put to the public.

Unfortunately, Labour does not seem to have done that with respect to the reception class; if it had, my article of February 25 may have never appeared.

I am pleased to note that he is now assuring us that any reforms at the point of transition from kindergarten to primary schooling will not affect the school leaving age.

What I take this to mean is that, in the light of what it has heared, Labour has decided to abandon its original idea of introducing an additional one-year reception class after kindergarten.

Which further means that it has been brought around to the idea that any change that may be required at this level should be of a curricular nature. This is reassuring news.

Not so reassuring, however, is his party's stance on the 11+. He refers to Labour's intention to discuss primary reform with parents, unions and teachers. Why hasn't he included the experts, the educationalists at the University and in the new directorates in the picture?

He surmises, probably correctly, that the group of assessment experts appointed by Minister Louis Galea to advise him on the future of the selective system of Junior Lyceum and common entrance exams have advised him to abolish it.

One can predict the reasons for this conclusion; the evidence shows the system to be inefficient and unfair and that it damages children. I wonder what, with the children's and the country's interests at heart, he will do with the report if he becomes minister and inherits it now that he has politicised the issue, poisoned the waters beyond remedy and tied his own hands on the question.

Will he publish the report and distance himself from it, as is predictable, or merely ignore it? Whichever course he chooses, the responsibility is his and he will be called to account for it.

Finally, I am glad he has conceded that I am a "valid person"' - I hope he didn't mean to be patronising! But he is wide off the mark when he attributes what he sees as a change in me "to a more convenient position in the centre" to the coming election. His suggestion is offensive.

I am not a politician, so I have no need to take "convenient positions". I have never done so and am not about to start now, election or no election. I need to please no one.

My professional advice, whenever sought, has always been given honestly and in the country's interest whoever is in government.