Updated 6.30pm with Education Minister's press conference
Monday's teacher strike will go on as planned despite the Prime Minister's offer to withdraw the proposed Education Act from Parliament.
Addressing a news conference in the evening, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said the government wrote to the Speaker to formally withdraw the bills.
The minister said he wrote to the Malta Union of Teachers to formally inform them of this development and to urge them to withdraw the strike directive. The MUT is especially at loggerheads with the act, insisting that teachers' permanent warrant was under threat.
Should the strike still go ahead, the government, he said, had a logistical plan to ensure the safety and well-being of children.
When asked about this plan, the minister said the government preferred to wait on the MUT to say whether or not it would withdraw the directive.
“My question is why are the MUT still striking,” Mr Bartolo asked.
In a statement earlier, the Malta Union of Teachers expressed dismay that Dr Muscat disclosed information which had been discussed in a conciliatory meeting on Friday morning.
Dr Muscat's disclosure was intended to ensure that the ministry got what it wanted, "either by stealth or through an impressive spin machine which is trying to pit the rest of society against educators," the MUT said.
The union is insisting it is not only protesting the current "abominable proposed law", but the lack of consultation before the Education Act was presented in Parliament.
"This industrial action is the culmination of many disappointments, including the negation and then minimisation of what the MUT has been saying since discovering the bills tabled in Parliament," it insisted.
The three bills presented in Parliament should still be withdrawn, the union insisted.
"You first" - UPE
Meanwhile, the Union of Professional Educators said the Prime Minister would have to withdraw the proposed Act from parliament first before it called its members off Monday's planned strike.
"We will not support the MUT calling off the strike until we see Dr Muscat has withdrawn the bill from Parliament," UPE head Graham Sansone said.
Insisting warrants should not be tied to continuous training, Mr Sansone said the warrants opened a Pandora’s Box for all professions.
"What’s to say other professions regulated by warrants will not be threatened as well?" Mr Sansone asked.