We are reaching the end of another scholastic year and many schools culminate the year with a Prize Day. Very often prizes are awarded to students who excel in their final exams during the past scholastic year with the result of disappointing a good number of others who do not make the grade. It is high time that the format of Prize Day is changed.

Awards on Prize Day should include a vaster spectrum of competencies and skills once we are looking at the child holistically in education and not emphasising, solely, the academic aspect. Unfortunately, prizes are still being based on grades that are very specific and limited in meaning. It is indeed very difficult to quantify a skill or a performance.

Minister Dolores Cristina in her article Prize Day Season (May 2) rightly pointed out that "Prize Days are a brilliant 'getting-to-know-you' way of learning about the ethos of a school."

In fact, such occasions should be for the whole school community - teachers, parents and students - to celebrate their past year achievements. Personally, I prefer the occasion to be entitled Achievement Day rather than Prize Day because the title as it stands could still imply a narrow meaning of education. We all know that most prizes are calculated on grades attained in an exam.

So if our system of education is such that we are awarding students solely on exam performance rather than on a vast array of abilities and competencies, then we are defeating the real purpose of education.

That is why at De La Salle College, for example, while I was headmaster we had introduced Value Prizes where students were awarded certificates based on their specific skills, characteristics and competencies. It takes time, patience and dedication to help cultivate a specific skill and Prize Day is the day when the school evaluates and brings to the limelight those achievements that the school as a community has managed to achieve with the cooperation of all stakeholders.

"Prize Days are essentially success stories," says the Minister. I fully agree, but success in what? And by whom? How are we going to gauge a school's success?

By simply looking at the final results and calculating the number of students who, say, achieved more than 90 per cent in a particular subject? What about, for example, a particular school whose students come from all walks of life - a truly inclusive school - and whose mission statement insists that it gives special attention to those students who are marginalised (the least, the lost and the left out)? Would such a school be considered unsuccessful if many of its students, due to various circumstances, have not achieved the coveted grade? How does such a school celebrate Prize Day? What is its success story? Surely not the high grades but the high values that it keeps and propagates. As Mc. Gaw et al rightly state: "School effectiveness is about a great deal more than maximising academic achievement."

The final quote of Mrs Cristina taken from a 2007 Unesco report that states, "Schools are about building a basis for life-long learning not just for academic achievement" says it all. If Prize Day is just a day where solely academic achievement is being highlighted, then, I am afraid, such a school is still far from being considered an educational institution.

Let us change our way of looking at Prize Days once we have enhanced our vision of education. Inclusive education has given us a more holistic approach to education.

Looking at the child as a whole means awarding the progressive moments of the child's achievements as he gradually proceeds from one stage to another. And in this transformation the whole school community is changing, adapting and celebrating the progress of each child.

Mr Azzopardi is ex-headmaster of De La Salle College (Primary).