The government has contributed €58 million to Church schools to help them recruit more staff in various subjects, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said yesterday.
Further public funds under the Church-State agreement were used to pay the salaries of heads of schools, assistant heads and teaching staff. Ten per cent was also given for general expenses.
Where independent schools asked for State aid for certain specific reasons, the Department of Education was also ready to help.
Mr Bartolo was speaking on two opposition amendments – moved by Mario de Marco and George Pullicino – to the Legal Notice establishing the Institute for Education.
The first amendment called for two persons (and not one) to be nominated for the non-State educational sector – one nominated by the Church schools and one by the independent schools.
Dr Bartolo said the government agreed and the amendment had already been approved by the Cabinet. The independent and Church schools had already proposed the names of their representatives – Joe Gauci and Fr Jimmy Bartolo respectively.
He was pleased that the person chosen to represent the Council for the Teaching Profession on the board was also on a PN think tank.
This amendment was unanimously approved.
The second amendment, a vote on which will be taken next Monday, calls for a person to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Bartolo said the government did not agree with appointing someone on a political basis. If the Opposition wanted any information about the institute, this would be completely accessible and also open to parliamentary scrutiny.
The minister said there was a need for a cross-curricular approach which required a change in the mentality of teachers and in pedagogy. The main aim of the Institute for Education was the continuous professional development and training of teachers in State, private and Church schools.
Winding up debate on the motion, Shadow Minister for Education George Pullicino said there was unanimous agreement on the need for continuing professional development, especially of teachers. Many teachers agreed on the concept but insisted on a change in current conditions of work for real training which would have an effect on them and the educational system.
There seemed to be an overlap among the institute, the faculty of education and the council for the teaching professions. The institute must look for synergy with the other two.
Unless the right amount of funding was made available to the institute it could go the way of the Commission for Sustainable Development, which had resigned en bloc for lack of funds, Mr Pullicino warned.
On the proposal of Opposition representation on the institute board, he said if the government really believed that education needed continuity and not a partisan political battleground, there should be no problem.
The government’s management of education was characterised by haste, a piecemeal approach and frustrating changes of direction. In 2013 it had launched a framework for a strategy in education between 2014 and 2020, but no legislation had yet appeared. It could only mean that the self-appointed targets had fallen by the wayside.
Mr Pullicino said the government’s answers about the way forward for education must be clear.
There needed to be a wide-ranging, profound discussion on post-secondary education. It was not right to play around with education, one of the most sensitive sectors for the whole country.
The Opposition, he said, was ready to do its duty to contribute to planning and implementation if it was given the tools.