A campaign to encourage more involvement by parents in their children’s schools was launched by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo this afternoon.

Addressing a press conference, he said that school council elections were only held in 17 out of 102 state schools. Two schools did not even have a council.

Most councils were made up of eight people, only two of whom would be parents.

The minister said that not only was he not satisfied with the number of parents involved, he was also disappointed with the quality of their involvement.

Taking care of fund raising, school outings and maintenance was not enough, he said adding that parents had to be more substantially involved in the education of their children.

They should also be involved in the drawing up of policies and strategies, such as the national literacy strategy.

Mr Bartolo said that the Education Act would be amended, hopefully before January, when school council elections were held, to increase the democratisation of school governance as well as the power of school councils

He said he wanted schools to coordinate and offer training to parents on how to help their children after school hours.

Comments and suggestion may be sent to mede@gov.mt .