School council elections will be held in all State schools on January 23.

Nominations for both teaching staff and parents are now open. Parents may obtain nomination forms from schools or they may send their nomination online through the Education Ministry website http://education.gov.mt/en/Pages/Parents-Nomination-for-School-Council.aspx .

Nominations will be accepted up to Thursday at 1pm.

Parents and guardians of students can stand for election and vote for the council at the school where their children attend.

While only one member from each family can participate as a candidate for the same school, parents can sit on more than one council as long as their children attend those schools.

Parents who are also teachers can be nominated both as teacher representatives as well as parent representatives on the same council, but if they are elected for both posts they have to choose one of them.

Teachers whose children attend a different school from where they teach can be teacher representatives in their school and parent representatives in their children’s school.

For the forthcoming elections, councils will be constituted in 103 school – 68 primary schools, 29 secondary schools, four resource centres and two post-secondary schools. Elections will only be held in those schools where more than three members of the teaching staff or more than four parents have been nominated to sit on the council.

In the school council elections held in January 2013, out of the 101 school councils, only 26 schools (18 primary, five secondary, two resource centres and one post-secondary) held elections to elect teachers, parents or both.

Only 18 schools held elections to elect parents.

The other 75 schools did not need to hold elections as they had the exact number of contestants and the council was automatically formed.

Three schools did not receive any nominations to form the council.

Every family is entitled to one vote. Voting documents will be sent to families by post or with their child.

Parents may cast their vote on January 23 at the school indicated. In this case they have to present the voting document sent to them.

People without this document will not be permitted to vote.

Parents can also vote by sending the filled-in voting document to the school either by post or in a sealed envelope by child mail.

Elections for school councils are held every two years and the councils to be elected on January 23 will serve up to to December 31, 2016.