That’s it. I’ve tried really hard to avoid it, but I must admit, it’s too big to ignore anymore. I have to admit this is something which is the talk of the town for thousands of families around the island; it will have an impact on our society for many, many years to come; it is the cornerstone without which democracy becomes a farce. I am of course referring to our education system.

Even as we speak, thousands of our future citizens are going through the trials, tribulations, and motions of sitting for exams. And it’s no laughing matter.

Not being a parent myself, this aspect of life is a distant memory, one which consisted of a couple of weeks in June when things got hot and bothersome and the prospect of a lazy summer was just beyond the horizon.

It seems that things over the last 30 years have changed, and not, it seems, for the better.

Our students, in a race for letters after their names, have been taught to ‘get with the programme’ and not question anything

In my other life as a theatre person, I constantly meet up with what, at my age, I can safely term ‘the younger generation’, and they are not a happy lot.

From what I can understand, their lives have become a series of rushed appointments from curriculum, to extra-curriculum, to private lessons, to homework, and so on and so forth, until they arrive bruised, bedraggled, and befuddled at the June finishing line.

And let us not think this is happening only in the last year of secondary or sixth form, or indeed at university. No. Apparently this is happening even at junior school level, when even ‘playtime’ with friends has to be slotted in into one hour periods in between one thing and another.

When did this happen? When did we decide that we should literally start training our kids for the rat-race from such an early age?

The thought first occurred to me when I read an article a few weeks by the newly installed Commissioner for Children Pauline Miceli. She took the education system to task for, and I quote, “burdening children with long syllabuses, laden with useless information” and she said that more focus should be given to critical thinking.

She was immediately condemned for saying this by The Sunday Times columnist and university lecturer Mark Anthony Falzon. Describing her office as a waste of space both literally and figuratively, he poo-poo’d the commissioner for saying that young people can get their information from the internet, pointing out that you cannot get critical thinking without knowing the facts. And of course he was right… up to a point.

A visit to the theatre or a concert, or even media studies (which we are in contact with on a daily basis), are considered of little importance - as children need time to be given more ‘facts

The thing is what Pauline Miceli was trying to say in an, admittedly, clumsy sort of way, was that human beings, and especially young human beings, should not be treated like empty receptacles into which we dump as much ‘knowledge’ as we possibly can, all learnt by rote - because we have no time, nor patience, nor a system that allows children to understand the what, why and wherefore they are being given all this ‘knowledge’. And the worst of it is there have been enough studies to show that our current system of education is still failing us, and failing us badly.

A recent very interesting edition of Times Talk took on this very subject and asked the very pertinent questions: why is it that despite a much better student-to-teacher ratio than we had even 10 years ago, illiteracy remains persistently high, or why is it that employers cannot find good quality (as opposed to merely qualified) employees?

And it seems that we still have not learnt anything. The new curriculum still places a huge amount of importance on ‘injecting’ knowledge as opposed to absorbing it.

So for example, a visit to the theatre or a concert, or even media studies (which we are in contact with on a daily basis), are considered of little importance - as children need time to be given more ‘facts’.

On the other hand the teaching of music is bizarrely paired up not with maths but with physical education, as this is convenient for the administrators who have more of one type of teacher than another.

And the problems do not stop there. In fact I would dare to suggest that they start there. Although we have seen much change at the University of Malta, there is still a great deal of learning by rote. Indeed in some cases it is actively encouraged. Our students, in a race for letters after their names, have been taught to ‘get with the programme’ and not question anything. And many of these students will become teachers, or parents, who will pass on the same system and ideas.

And if that is the case, then Ms Miceli should consider returning Prof. Falzon’s compliment, and describe the university as a waste of space, both literally and figuratively.