Education and youth policy should be based on social justice and inclusion – AD

In a press conference held in B'Kara, Alternattiva Demokratika argued that they should be based on social justice and social inclusion.

AD Chairperson Michael Briguglio pledged that if elected to parliament, AD "will ensure that debate on education focuses on social justice and social inclusion, especially since Malta's levels of early school leavers, illiteracy and cross-class representation at post-secondary and tertiary levels remain low compared to the EU average".

In his own address, AD spokesperson for Youth Reuben Zammit called for the establishment of a Youth Services Act, insisting that this is needed to enforce the regularization of all youth centres.

He said that while youth centres should be allowed to retain their social identity, "youths need to be safeguarded from discrimination on the basis of gender, belief, sexual orientation or ethnicity."

He said that youth centres should also act as a platform where young people with disability can be socially included and feel part of a community.  

Such law would also ensure that such centres are run by appropriately qualified individuals.

"We also believe that youths should have a strong say in the running of these centres. In localities where a state-licensed youth centre is not present, the local council should be given all the necessary help to set up a new centre," Zamimt said.

AD Spokesperson for Education Mario Mallia reiterated the need for students to feel more included in the educational process.  Among the measures that need to be taken, there is the need for smaller schools, he said.

"It is in smaller schools that children feel cared for.  In large schools, children feel lost.  This is having a strong impact on learning.  Just as important is the need to ensure that through making good use of existing resources, the number of children in our classes is smaller.  This should better enable us to reach the aims of educational justice within the recent educational reforms based on mixed ability teaching."

Mario Mallia also spoke about the college system and said that while AD is in favour of their setting up, these should be give greater autonomy so that they will be able to design their service according to the particular needs of their students. Mallia also said that it is disappointed that the discussion on educational proposals was launched with the promise of PC tables.  

"While AD supports the need to continue training our students in IT skills, at the same time, it feels that this should entail a thought-out process that ensures that the technology is supported by the necessary training and infrastructure."

He said that AD would have preferred such a proposal to be incorporated within a wider educational framework.

Mallia also pressed on the need for more efforts with regards to early intervention programmes, illiteracy and the strengthening of the CDAU so that educational problems are identified at an early stage as well more investment in ancillary services including family therapy and other services that support the family.  

He also said that our educational system seriously lacks policies on multiculturalism, gender as well as LGBT.  "The absence of such policies means that there is no institutional provision with the consequence that everything depends on the will of individuals in schools." 

 "It is time to see whether, within a context of inclusion, we should consider a co-education system with girls and boys learning together.  AD feels that a national debate should be launched to ensure that gender inequalities would truly be addressed in our educational system, also through co-education," he said.

Welcoming the fact that the number of students in post-secondary education has increased, Mallia said that however "AD feels that statistics about the number of students in post-secondary institutions who do not manage to complete their course should be published.  Such statistics would help identify the reasons and the solutions for stopping this haemorrhage."