For as long as I can remember, teachers have complained about is-sillabu (the syllabus). This perennial bugbear seems to double as a straitjacket on the one hand and a set of impossible demands on the other. I suppose most teachers eventually learn how to navigate its murky waters and get on with their job.

Not so their representatives. The latest piece of action is a spat between the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) and the Curia.

It seems the first are unhappy at the second’s choice of topics for the primary-school syllabus for religion. I watched Realtà on TVM last Wednesday and found myself rooting firmly for the Curia’s main man on this one, Fr René Camilleri.

I don’t think religion should be taught in State schools as a compulsory subject, at primary or any other level. My opinion has nothing to do with crucifixes in classrooms (no, I don’t find them offensive) or the value or otherwise of religion.

The point rather is that Catholicism is no longer the all-pervasive religion it once was. These days, Maltese society includes a broad range of beliefs and lack of beliefs.

It’s not a shock-and-horror matter of outsiders imposing their regimes on us. It’s just that Maltese society has become more mixed. That includes a large number of home-growns who are simply not interested in any religion, or who have chosen paths other than the Catholic one. My antipathy to collectivism and monolithic systems means that I find this a happy state of affairs.

It’s not as if Catholics have run out of options. Malta has what is quite possibly the best catechism infrastructure in the world.

Add to that home practice, as well as the thousands of churches and shrines and radio stations and newspaper pages and whatnot, and the conclusion can hardly be that Catholicism is about to go the way of the mother goddess.

In other words, parents who wish to bring up their children as Catholics have no need to rely on schools to do the job.

And if they insisted, they could always send them to Church schools.

So far, then, things seem to be going rather badly for Camilleri. One reason why I found his position more compelling than that of the MUT president is that he seemed more open-minded about the kind of freedom of choice that would have Catholicism taught to those children whose parents really wanted it.

The second reason had to do with the kind of language used by the MUT president. I say this with respect, because I happen to know Kevin Bonello as a man of integrity and much good will. Still, I found his attitude to the syllabus and to education generally profoundly shocking. I can only hope it wasn’t his best night out, and that what he said isn’t shared by teachers broadly.

Bonello repeatedly referred to “affarijiet li ilhom li saru elfejn sena” (‘things that happened 2,000 years ago’) and “parabboli u affarijiet” (‘parables and stuff’).

His point was that such content is no longer relevant to young children, who apparently are more interested in ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘soft skills’ these days.

That does sort of beg the question. If teachers of religion are not wont to waste their time telling children about parables and 2,000 year-old stuff, what on earth are they doing teaching religion at all? Surely they would be better off teaching PSD, the kind of topic that covers Bonello’s cherished soft skills.

It gets worse. Bonello’s model of what makes things relevant is one of the most narrow-minded and dogmatic I’ve come across in a long time. Since when are things that happened 2,000 years ago no longer relevant to children? Can we take it that education these days is about the here and now, and about entrepreneurship (whatever that means)? Is the soft skill of cutting throats better than your peers do, the only thing that matters?

I thought education was also about helping children relate to long-term tradition and civilisation

Funny, but I thought education was also about helping children relate to long-term tradition and civilisation. It seems to me that parables, and stories of “things that took place in the desert” (another of Bonello’s gems), do that job rather well.

Which brings me to ethics. Readers will know that experiments are under way to offer ethics as an alternative subject to religion. As I write, schoolchildren in St Paul’s Bay and Sliema may choose to walk out of the classroom at the mention of Mount Sinai, and join the ethics class instead.

Rather like jumping out of the proverbial pan, I’d say. I’m not about to lecture people like Prof. Kenneth Wain on ethics. I’m sure that he and the people who designed the ethics programme are highly competent. I’m also sure they know that ethics is no substitute for religion, for two reasons.

First, because it has never occurred to me that religious people display higher-than-average ethical standards. I mean, disgraced former chief justice, Lourdes pilgrim and theology graduate Noel Arrigo clutched his rosary beads as he was taken out of court. It really isn’t a matter of ethics having to step in where religion once stood.

Second, because the fact that ethics and religion tend to be intertwined in so many traditions doesn’t mean they’re peas in a pod. The value of religion is in large measure down to its ability to provide people with an experience of life in which things like ritual, silence and a cosmology mean something. Ethics is a different matter altogether. Our wayward schoolchildren may as well join the mathematics class.

Provided, that is, they thought mathematics was relevant.

Remember, the MUT president’s point throughout was that children should not be taught things they saw as irrelevant.

Funny, because I for one laboured under the misconception that teaching was about showing children that what appears to be irrelevant may in fact be the opposite.

mafalzon@hotmail.com