Education Shadow Minister Joe Cassar has asked the government to come clean on the new education Act, saying that nobody, apart from “friends of friends”, knew anything about what was being planned.

He accused the govern-ment of trying to down-play the success achieved in education through init-iatives taken by various Nationalist administrations.

The PN had built a school every year and would have continued on the same path had it been re-elected.

Since it won the elections eight months ago, the government had not named one locality where it planned to build new schools.

Dr Cassar said the PN had created 14 child care centres and had planned others.

Labour had still not opened a single one.

The government had indicated it would announce its education plans during the budget speech, abandoning its electoral plans in the process.

However, the Budget was bereft of any information.

Things being what they were, no new school would be built before 2015. What new initiatives would the government be taking during the legislature?

He said rumours that certain schools were going to be closed down were causing uncertainty.

Was it true that children in state schools were going to be moved to older schools because of a lack of resources and space and because new schools were not going to be ready?

The government must act.

Dr Cassar said the Opposition had always given importance to Church and indepen-dent schools.

The government should increase their budget vote.

The PN had given students a number of scholarships and many had benefited from post-graduate schemes.

What were the government’s plans in this sector?

Dr Cassar said there was the need of more professionals to help children with educational deficits.

The Opposition and the government should agree on a new financial mechanism to make the University fully autonomous and enable it to provide adequate training and research.

Every year, the University hosted 2,800 new graduates – an example of the PN’s vision and success in this sector.

The government introduced the co-educational pilot project but parents were worried that this reform was introduced too quickly and would have a big impact on teachers who had no preparation or training.

Independent schools should have been consulted about their experience of co-education because not everyone agreed with this concept.

Rumours that certain schools were going to be closed down were causing uncertainty

Dr Cassar concluded that he knew the minister truly had education at heart, and he hoped the two sides could work better together.

Stephen Spiteri (PN) said Malta’s success in employment was thanks to the quantum leap in quality that took place in education over the years.

More students were continuing with post-secondary and post-graduate courses as a result of the considerable investment the PN poured into education. The University now offered 700 courses.

ETC apprenticeships had also helped to improve educational standards.

Unfortunately, such training programmes were no longer being offered.

Robert Cutajar, Clyde Puli and Frederick Azzopardi also contributed to the debate.