TV presenter Peppi Azzopardi was dragged into the political arena yesterday and featured in a clip slamming Labour’s proposal to introduce a “reception class” in the educational curriculum for kindergarten students entering their first years of formal education.
Azzopardi’s soundbite was featured during a Nationalist activity in Qormi, featuring the presenter’s comments in a series of chosen clips of people expressing their disagreement with the Malta Labour Party’s idea.
Shortly after Azzopardi’s clip, TV presenter Pierre Portelli, who was chairing the PN activity, passed a comment saying that they met the PBS presenter while he was waiting for his son in front of Attard Primary School.
Portelli said: “I know how happy Peppi is with this particular school”.
The comment was directed as an answer to pictures of the state of the Attard school which were displayed earlier yesterday morning by journalist Brian Hansford during a press conference by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi on education.
Hansford, whose son attends the Attard primary, showed Gonzi pictures of the school in a dilapidated state.
Gonzi said the PN wanted 85% of young people to continue their post-secondary studies, adding that in 10 years, students continuing their post-secondary education had risen from 40% to 70%.
He also said Labour’s reception class proposal was a “serious mistake” that was nothing but a repeater class.
The PN press conference yesterday morning was held outside St Benedict College in Safi after being hastily changed just two hours before the event. Originally, the press conference was supposed to take place in front of Sant Injazju College, Qormi, formerly knows as Tal-Handaq.
This newspaper was not informed about this change in location.
During the press conference MaltaToday asked Gonzi whether the location had been intentionally changed due to Sant Injazju teachers who are currently following union directives and working on a work-to-rule basis, due to claims of disorganisation at the school.
Gonzi said the press conference was initially supposed to be held “in front of a beautiful college” and that he was now holding it “in front of another nice building”.
Asked whether he agrees with Sant Injazju College holding an open day just two weeks before the general election when this college has been in operation since September last year, Gonzi simply answered that he hoped “nobody was expecting that because of the election his work stops and everyone goes to sleep.”
Lawrence Gonzi also insisted that the PN was different from the MLP, saying that whilst the Labour Party was pledging the creation of 6,000 jobs, the PN would create 20,000 places within the next legislature.
The end of the press conference was marked by the conspicuousness of a NET TV cameraman filming journalists, including this newspaper’s reporter, while chatting with colleagues.
The same incident took place later in the day after the filming of Lawrence Gonzi’s TV debate on PBS, where a NET cameraman was waiting outside Television House to film journalists leaving the PBS studios. The same cameraman could be seen filming the reporter’s movements later in the evening during the PN’s activity held in Qormi.

jfarrugia@mediatoday.com.mt