The Labour Party is committed to Church schools, viewing them as essential partners in Malta’s educational system, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.

He was speaking at a meeting with Church school authorities during which they discussed how the schools could be supported to carry out their aims.

Opening the meeting, Dr Muscat said the party was committed to seeing Church schools surmount the challenges they were facing and to helping them by giving them the backing they needed to fulfil their “fundamental role”.

The Archbishop’s Delegate for Catholic Education, Fr Charles Mallia, said Church schools were facing challenging times, especially in view of the changes they were going through. These changes required energy, resources and creativity.

He said one of the main challenges was the mixed-ability teaching, which would bear fruit in the coming years when the children reached their goals.

Another major challenge was technology, which put a strain on the schools, both financially as well as when it came to integrating it into teaching methods.

The meeting proceeded behind closed doors.

The relationship between the Labour Party and Church schools has been full of strife at moments in the past. In the 1980s, teachers took to the streets to protest against the then Labour Government’s plans to take over all 19 Church schools by refusing them licences to operate during the following scholastic year.

The eight schools were refused a government licence after they had failed to accept a set of conditions imposed on them by Prime Minister Dom Mintoff’s socialist administration.