Discussion about obligatory school age needs to take place – Muscat

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said that internal discussions regarding the idea of raising the school-leaving age are currently taking place, also adding that this discussion will be expanded to the wider public soon.

Muscat was delivering his weekly Sunday political speech, and said that while there are very strong positive arguments for this idea, it also carries with it some challenges that need to be addressed.

The prime minister said that this discussion has taken place in cabinet from time to time. The obligatory school age currently stands at 16, he said. “There are some countries who have raised this age to 17 or 18.”

There are repercussions to this, he said. “There is a very strong argument, in my view, in favour for this to happen, but it should not be done from one day to the next.”

He spoke of the need to improve the early school-leaver statistics in order to look at this discussion. He also said that there are employers who already struggle to find employees, and that there is also the question of certain people trying to scaremonger the public about foreigners.

“So it would mean having fewer people who can go out and work between 16 and 18, meaning you would need more foreigners to fill those jobs. But you need to see where we want to lead the country. Do we want to have children longer in education or not? We also have the poverty question.” He said that those under most pressure to leave school at 16 are from poor families, whose parents tell them that if they do not go out and work then they will struggle. He said that those extra two years in school will help them in their future.

“These are the kinds of discussions we began internally and will soon bring out externally for everyone to have a say.”

He spoke about the silent revolution ongoing in the country in different sectors.

He said that the government wants to leave a country in a better state than it inherited it in.

He said that the economy is the base for everything to occur. A political party must aspire to be in government so that it can implement in practice what it believes in, he said.

Muscat said that the PL is not satisfied to simply expand the economy, but wants to ensure that the benefits make a positive difference in people's lives.

In education, he said, one of the largest silent revolutions is ongoing. The previous governments did a lot for education, Muscat said. “The previous government used to focus its investment on building a school each year, which was important and we have continued to invest in education infrastructure. The infrastructural way we worked includes new schools, like Dingli and Qawra which is being built, but also includes fixing up legacy - old - schools.”

He also spoke about the technological infrastructure, and called this a part of this silent revolution. He spoke about students having tablets, a proposal which when first proposed seemed far away, but today has been fully implemented.

Muscat spoke of the second phase of this, for a technological infrastructural investment in middleschools. He said that one needs to be technologically literate in today's world.

He said that the education sector in Malta used to have a system that included trade schools, he said. “This was controversial, as while some people called them their salvation, others said that this was a form of segregation."”

Over time it was a trend to close these schools, he said. “We constantly come at the bottom of EU tables in terms of vocational education. We did not have a way for those who were good with their hands to move forward. From this year, we started a strand in our mainstream education system, in our schools, where children who want to specialise more in vocational work can do so in their school, not in a separate school. That will give many children the opportunity to advance forward.”

Muscat spoke about having specialised programmes for those who have fallen behind, and for those who have certain challenging behaviour. These programmes have helped reduce the number of early school leavers, he said, while adding that Malta is still at the bottom of the table in this regard. “While looking at the positive, we need to continue working to overcome it,” he said.

Muscat spoke about improving conditions for educators, and the work done in the last collective agreement.

The prime minister took aim at the Opposition, and highlighted Delia’s speech in Parliament in his response to the budget, and indicated inaccuracies that the PN leader had made.

He spoke about certain imbalances in society, including when it comes to women in politics. He said that Malta is ahead when it comes to LGBTIQ rights and minority rights.

“When it comes to the participation of women in the country’s decisions, Malta cannot keep saying that by time it will even out. We need to jump-start it. We need to show women that politics is not a man’s world with little opportunity for women. We need to show that this is a sector where we practice equality.”

“I praise Miriam Dalli and the LEAD programme, where more participants have signed up. I hope that other parties do the same. There is a need to show that changes can continue to happen. Change has not concluded in our country. Another major change is the way we look at sustainability when it comes to the climate.”

The climate sector is not just about the environment, but is about the social sector and the economy, he said. “In the coming years, if there isn’t someone in power who manages it in a socially sensitive manner, then the needed change will either not happen or the most vulnerable will suffer.”

He said that the way the PL delved into the challenge to improve the climate situation was different from the PN’s, which he said still used the ‘cancer factory’ and heavy fuel oil. “The only way they saw to do this was to reduce emissions is for people to reduce their consumption, and to do this they wanted to increase the tariffs.”

He said that thousands of pensioners went into poverty because of those tariffs. He said that the PN had the right aim to reduce emissions, but had the wrong recipe. He said that by 2023 this government would have invested €400 million to link Malta to Europe with a gas pipeline. He said the PL closed down the Marsa power station, and the electricity tariffs reduced.

Muscat said that the next part of the challenge is cars, which are the largest source of emissions locally. Muscat said that if they leave it in others hands to solve, the change will come, but the people who struggle most will end up paying for it. Muscat said that Malta has a huge second-hand market as that is what people can afford. “The moment the country moves to more eco-friendly cars, what will happen to those workers on minimum wage? How will we work all this out?” he asked. “The change we need to plan has to be done in a way where it happens but where those most in need won’t suffer.”

He spoke of the need to “educate ourselves and understand the changes we need. The people recognise that this movement solved many of the problems we inherited. The people also recognise that we have new problems. But while they recognise that there are these new problems, they realise that it can only be this government who can solve them to continue growing together.”

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo also addressed the PL political event. Bartolo said that next year, Malta will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Labour Party.

He spoke of the challenge Malta has faced with regard to integrating foreigners. He spoke about Malta having fought for rights including equality and others, and said that those “who are with us live in the society which we have created,” noting that Malta will not revert those rights.

He said that “we can live with others, while respecting what we have created.”

Turning to education, he said that in 2018 Malta used to spend €400 million and next year will spend more than €800 million on education.

He spoke about having raised teachers’ wages in recent past, and said that Maltese teachers earn more than English or French teachers. He said that “we will continue working to improve their working conditions.”

He said that people complained that last year saw the highest number of teachers resigning, and said that last year, only 34 left the job through resignations, excluding people changing school, for example. Bartolo also mentioned schemes relating to the education sector, and highlighted the rising number of degree students.

Parliamentary Secretary for Planning and the Property Market Chris Agius highlighted that this was the third budget without new taxes, he said, when highlighting that in the past people would be concerned about rising energy tariffs.

Agius said that many workers did not like working overtime due to the taxes on it, and said that this budget reduces that for the first 100 hours. Agius also said that the government will be giving a bonus to families over and above the COLA, and giving an extra leave day to workers.

He spoke about several other budgetary measures, and also addressed criticism by the opposition that this was a recycled budget, explaining that they only recycle what is good and what is a success, highlighting the first-time buyers scheme and others as examples.