Education, education, education

The outgoing month was one when there was sharp focus on education. The revenue and particularly expenditure votes pertaining to it were discussed in the House of Representatives. Hundreds of undergraduates and graduates took their hard-earned degrees from our University. And the Minister of Education announced far-reaching plans to abolish examinations and to end streaming.

Yet education is not a monthly affair. In conjunction with public outlays on preventive medicine I consider expenditure on it to be the most important of all of any government's public spending. It is also an area where there is not much room for political division.

That factor is enhanced by the fact of the individuals who are now responsible for running and monitoring it, as it was too in the past. In Minister Dolores Christina the sector has one of the best elements in Lawrence Gonzi's Cabinet. On the opposition side, Evarist Bartolo is an excellent shadow spokesman and when the time comes he will surely be a very progressive and effective Education Minister, as he was between 1996 and 1998.

The two individuals are not expected to agree on every aspect of education. In particular Mr Bartolo will probe and criticise Mrs Cristina on the performance front. Yet when it comes to basics there will be no frivolous disagreements, nor, I should think, any fundamental divide at the prescriptive front, proposing and deciding what is to be done.

Education receives massive resources from the government of the day. They are still not enough. Evarist Bartolo observed in the Budget debate that the bulk of financial allocations go to pay salaries and wages, and that not enough is left for programmes and initiatives. It is important that teaching staff are motivated through adequate pay. The Malta Union of Teachers, one of the most positively militant around, sees to that.

Besides wages and salaries allocations, appropriate funding needs to be made available to give education top priority. The ministry, which I know from experience fights its corner for its funds with strong determination, can never have enough, though it must see to it that its allocations are spent efficiently and in time.

Education is the key to the future, taking its whole spectrum into account. The impact on society and the economy comes from the quality of the students educated at the secondary and the tertiary levels. At the latter level constant review of the type of undergraduate and graduate degrees that attract students has to take place. While ensuring freedom of choice for students in line with their natural capabilities, it is essential that enough are aware of both the need for and the ultimate reward in maths- and science-based degrees, a definition of which embraces more than one discipline.

The same goes for the courses offered at MCAST, whose success is, like that of the University, determined not by the number of qualified students it turns out, but in particular by their quality and relevance to the economy, today's and particularly tomorrow's. Education is a matter for consumption, certainly, and enough avenues must be available for individuals to pursue subjects which satisfy them through their own objectives.

Yet it is also a massive investment through which to ensure the future success and prosperity of our country.

That is why education has to be as sound as can be in the first instance at the fundamental primary level. At that level it is essential to try to guide pupils towards a proper awareness of social propriety, and to make them as literate and numerate as can be. That is where the bold step to abolish exams and streaming, to emphasise more continuous assessment, comes in as a very strong measure. Exams have their purpose, especially to instil an aptitude for decision-making, given that important decisions are related more to the instant than to long deliberation. Selectivity is also popular with parents whose children are above average.

Nevertheless I am among those who believe that if the new systems are properly implemented society as a whole will benefit from them. The collective result should take us to a higher plane of achievement.

A well-thought out education philosophy must also provide for those different from the mainstream, the so-called disabled. Disability can be an impediment to the level of achievement. It need not be so in all cases. Rather the opposite. Not to get the best of what the disabled have to offer would be to negate society an important resource, in addition to treating the disabled unjustly.

Innovation is taking place in that area, which also requires more resources. Any minister has to set priorities. But I am sure that serving Minister Dolores Cristina and Minister-in-waiting Evarist Bartolo will not fail to do their utmost to ensure that the disabled too get a just deal.

We have come a long way in the sector. Given its huge importance more needs to be done, especially to stem the inordinately high level of drop-outs and to entice more students into further education. But we are on the right track.