Soon thousands of youngsters will resume their training in primary and secondary schools, colleges and university. For many this will be a crucial year as they choose the courses that will influence their careers in the next four decades.

Work practices in the workplaces should be made more flexible for mothers who have to care for young children- John Cassar White

For parents it will be another year of hard work to cope with the physical and financial pressures that are inevitable with children going through their educational phase. For educators it will be a challenging year of giving their best to our young people despite limited resources in certain schools. I wish all of these stakeholders success in their work in the knowledge that our prosperity depends on their efforts.

I want to list some issues that I consider as the critical success factors of the educational function. Perhaps the most crucial factor is the right choices that students and their parents need to make regarding the courses they follow. Today there is a multitude of options available for students in post-secondary education. MCAST, for instance, provides a choice of courses that matches that available in much richer countries.

But we need to understand that the value of one course is not necessarily equivalent to that of any other course. The more academically capable students should avoid the soft options and go for courses that have the potential of opening more doors in the jobs market. Educators need to dialogue with these students and their parents to promote the tough courses as the romantic perception that post-secondary education of whatever kind is what really matters still prevails.

The failures in our education system can only partially be addressed by increasing capacity. What will really make a difference between success and failure in our educational system is our commitment to hardwire quality in our training. Of course, everyone claims to be committed to quality. We need to devise metrics that measure educational success in terms of: improved employability, the number of graduates in science, information and communications technology, engineering and other disciplines which today’s labour market demands; as well as the number of graduates who find the employment that they trained for, rather than take up any job that offers them the opportunity to be merely employed.

I also wish that the state does more to help struggling parents who exercise the option of training their children in the schools of their choice. While our state schools should aim to be the best in the country, parents who opt for an independent education for their children should be assisted much more than they are today. I have little respect for some neo-liberal educators who express disgust at the idea of the state helping parents who want to educate their children in independent schools, but who are the first to send their own children to Church or independent schools and eventually to foreign universities.

But perhaps my earnest wish is to see young mothers with children of school age being assisted by the state to cope with the pressures of raising a family and pursuing a career. Extending maternity leave is just one way of how these young mothers can be helped. It is sad that most employers in the EU, including in Malta, persist in their short-sighted opposition to the prospect of extending maternity leave. But beyond maternity leave work practices in the workplaces should be made more flexible for mothers who have to care for young children.

The public sector has made good progress in this area, but the private sector continues to put short-term profits before long-term harmonious staff relations.

Our prospects for more encouraging economic growth depend to a large extent on our ability to ease the insertion of more mothers with young children in the workplace. I also wish to see trade unions concentrating more on this issue rather than press for higher wages in every collective bargaining session, however much financial rewards are appreciated by every worker.

Finally, I would like to see our students being given the opportunity to gain practical working experience by our employers. I am glad that the Ministry of Education is working on this issue so that more and more students can include in their CVs a note that they have performed meaningful practical work during their final years of study.

In the educational field what matters is not so much the amount of effort and money that we invest in our students’ education, but whether our investment ultimately makes our youngsters more employable.

jcassarwhite@yahoo.com