This week tens of thousands of children have started their academic year. We can easily waste our time discussing silly issues such as school transport. However I do not feel that this is the crux of the matter. It may be an important issue for some, but we need to understand that there are more important ones at stake.

The outcome of our education policy should be to have responsible persons who are able to make a contribution to society in one way or another, according to one’s ability, which admittedly may even be limited. It should not be preparing the student for a job, as this would mean rendering the human person as nothing more than a producer of goods and services, irrespective of the other facets that make up the whole of the human person.

Sometimes we also get lost in the inputs of our education system – the money spent on education, number of teachers employed, subjects offered, number of computers, textbooks that are given out for free, stipends given to those attending tertiary education, and more. However, these inputs are just resources. If we do not know how to use them well such that they produce the desired outcomes, then it would be money down the drain.

We also get lost in the outputs of the education system such as the number of students who obtain the required number of passes at SEC level to proceed with their education or the number of persons finishing their University studies with a Master’s degree to their name. This would mean that if someone has ended one’s schooling without any qualification of sorts, that person would have no place in our society. Moreover, we all know that academic qualifications do not necessarily make a responsible citizen.

Are our students being encouraged and helped to be creative?

I also disagree with the stand taken by some employers that the education system should provide persons who are ready for employment. Some of the skills required in a job are acquired only through work experience. Extra-curricular activities that students may be involved in could help them acquire some basic skills, which other students would not have acquired. On the other hand, I do expect the education system to provide students with certain skills that are highly necessary for any job.

This is why I believe when discussing education in this country, we need to really understand the core issues and address them. Yet, I also think that to do this, we need to change our DNA, which may not be so possible. I say this because if today we feel that there is too much emphasis on passing exams and obtaining certificates, this is not different to what it was like in the 1930s.

The British Governor of the time, Sir Charles Bonham-Carter, made a comment in his diaries that the Maltese place more emphasis on passing exams than on learning. As such this fixation with exams is indeed a very old habit.

We need to ask to what extent our students are being taught how to learn, rather than just being taught a subject. This could very well the distinguishing feature in years to come – the extent to which we are able to continue learning throughout our life and the extent to which we are able to update our knowledge on our own. This is why I lay great emphasis on the need to learn the skill of how to learn.

We need to ask the extent to which our students are being taught how to collect information, analyse problems, be logical and arrive at a judgement through the traditional subjects of maths, English language and literature or history, or are they simply expected to regurgitate information passed on to them in the classroom?

Are our students being encouraged and helped to be creative, or to be more aware of their external environment, or to be critical thinkers, or to have a ‘helicopter’ perspective of things? Or does the learning process seek to restrict initiative, the use of one’s imagination and breadth of vision?

Where is the connection with the economy in all of this? I have already stated that the outcome of an education policy should not be the level of preparedness of an individual for a job. On the other hand, the skills I referred to are so fundamental that any employer expects them.

The success of an economy lies in its ability to reinvent itself, as our own Maltese experience has shown since we achieved independence in 1964. For our economy to reinvent itself, we need persons for whom the skills I referred to are like second nature to them. These are also the skills that our students will need to become responsible citizens.