Saying no to racism

The Maltese Islands are no longer a sending country in the global flow of migration in the world today. We feature largely as a transit country in global migrant smuggling, which generates more than €10 billion a year in profit for the organised criminal networks of human traffickers.

Each year up to four million migrants move to other countries without the proper authorization. Half a million migrants enter Europe irregularly every year.

Eight years ago Kofi Annan, presenting the report of the Global Commission on International Migration, said that migration poses "one of our most important challenges" in the 21st century and stressed the need to manage it for the benefit of all - sending countries, receiving countries, transit countries and migrants themselves.

What Kofi Annan said in 2005 is still valid: "I agree with the Commission that we are not rising to this challenge yet. But I am convinced that we must do so, in order to uphold common values and promote shared interests."

The 85 page report, 'Migration in an interconnected world: New directions for action', set forth six principles for action, ranging from ensuring that migrants enter the global labour market in a safe and authorised manner to enhancing greater cooperation among states to stem irregular migration while not jeopardizing human rights.

When presenting its report the Commission acknowledged the concerns of workers in developed countries, including the fear of losing jobs due to the influx of migrants. The Commission pointed out that some countries had lost competitiveness because they had clung to outmoded means of production. It was important not to confuse issues of competitiveness with the mobility of people and turn migrants into scapegoats.

The Commission urged each country to assess where it stood in the migration flow. It called on international organisations to analyse where desperate economic migrants were most likely to originate and said that the international community must provide debt relief and a fairer trade regime so that people "needn't jump into the Mediterranean to get better job opportunities".

The report calls on governments to consult with employers, trade unions and civil society on the issue of irregular migration. It is crucial to combat migrant smugglers and prosecute them while protecting the human rights of their victims.

The Commission dealt with the negative consequences of irregular migration and pointed out that one way of dealing with this problem is to return irregular migrants to the country of origin or the transit country as long as their lives are not at risk and that they will not be ill-treated on their return.

The European Union must help us more to cope with this problem. At the same time we must combat racism amongst us.

While this kind of racist rhetoric reflects how lots of our people feel about irregular migrants, it does nothing to help us deal with this important challenge of the 21st century, which will not go away.

I look forward in the coming year to launching educational projects in our schools with the help of NGOs who work with migrants, to celebrate intercultural diversity so that even strangers from remote countries become our brothers and sisters.

SEC results

Last Wednesday the MATSEC Board of the University of Malta published the SEC results for the May 2013 session. Of the 5,121 candidates who sat for the exam in English, 62% managed to pass Grades 1 to 5. There were 4,691 candidates for the exam in Maltese, and 61% of them obtained Grades 1 to 5. In mathematics we had 5,038 candidates, 57% of whom got Grades 1 to 5. I am leaving out those who obtained Grades 6 and 7, because they inflate our results and give us the impression that our students are getting brilliant results which would put us at the very top in global surveys and evaluations.

We know that is not the case. Our system is considered "fair" and there is still a lot of hard work to be done to improve it.

My ministry of education has not commented on these SEC results. Year after year the previous government reduced the publication of the SEC results to a banal propaganda exercise. It inflated the rate of success (putting it at 90%) by taking into consideration only those who sat for the exam and all those who passed Grades 1 to 7, ignoring those who did not sit for exams and those who failed or got very low marks and were graded 6 and 7.

Last January the MATSEC Board published its report for the 2012 SEC examination sessions and remarked that 43.5% of students born in 1996 obtained passes (Grade 1 to 5) in the required subjects and were therefore eligible for entry into Form VI. In particular, 37.1% of males born in 1996 and 50.4% of females born in 1996 obtained the necessary passes at the end of their secondary education, which qualified them for entry into Form VI for further studies.

This showed a drop of 1% in passes in Grades 1 to 5 when compared to the previous year. In 2011 only 44.5% of the 4,613 students born in 1995 obtained passes in the required subjects and were therefore eligible for entry into Form VI.

These statistics are enough to show that it did not make sense for the previous government to blow its trumpets about the brilliant results obtained by our students in SEC with passes in the main subjects ranging from 90% to 94%, by including those who got 6s and 7s in order to inflate the figures and to show a better pass rate. What marks do these students get when they are given 6s and 7s?

Should we be satisfied and lower our expectations, instead of raising standards and challenging our students to do so as well?

Should we be happy with these results, where 39%, 38% and 43% of our 16-year-olds do not obtain a 1 to 5 in Maltese, English and mathematics, respectively, after at least 11 years of schooling?

If we really want to improve our education system and increase the opportunities in life for many more young people, we need a frank and honest evaluation of the system. Let us celebrate the winners and what we are getting right, but we cannot for the sake of idiotic partisan propaganda turn our backs on those who can do better and especially those who are the losers of the system. Many of our young people are going to waste and this cannot be right and must be addressed.

Evarist Bartolo is minister for education