The success of a school should not be measured according to the number of academic certificates dished out, but on the way students are helped to become better people, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech said.

While acknowledging that certificates were important, they should not be used as a yardstick to determine whether a school is good.

“A good teacher helps a student recognise his human dignity and gain a human perspective on life,” he said, during a Mass homily for heads of Church schools and other officials.

He said the education system would be sterile if it failed to yield anything new. This was the case when a teacher was more interested in teaching technical know-how instead of guiding students on why and how to use the knowledge acquired. “In such cases, students are given tools without knowing how to use them,” he said, arguing that this leads to fragmented education.