Update | Opposition slams Education Minister for 'refusing to shoulder political responsibility' over SkolaSajf opening fiasco

‘Immediate steps’ will be taken to improve the Foundation for Educational Services (FES) following this summer’s SkolaSajf and Klabb 3-16 opening fiasco, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said. The Foundation for Educational Services falls within the Ministry for Education and employment and is responsible for creating innovative educational schemes.

“We will immediately start looking for a new FES leader,” Bartolo told MaltaToday. An inquiry board tasked with investigating the causes behind the delayed opening of this summer’s SkolaSajf and Klabb-31 programmes criticised FES CEO Roderick Agius. Headed by stockbroker Paul Bonello. the board's report said that Agius “tends to undervalue problems”, that he “had lost all moral authority with staff and stakeholders”, and that his position was “no longer tenable”. It also criticised the passive attitude of the Directorate for Educational Services (DES) within the Ministry. 

However, Bartolo added that problems within the FES don’t start and end with its leader.

“The inquiry board also highlighted structural problems within FES,” Bartolo said. “We need to train the FES administration and hire people based on their leadership and managerial skills, not on their academic qualifications alone.”

A ministerial decision placed SkolaSajf under FES, with effect as from summer this year. However, the opening of the summer club centres this summer was delayed by four days after the Ministry for Education realized there were not enough centre coordinators, teachers and play-workers to cater for the 10,800 students.

“SkolaSajf will remain the joint responsibility of the FES and the DES,” Bartolo confirmed. “We have learned from our mistakes and are already looking at how to improve the services for SkolaSajf 2015.”

“I have already shouldered responsibility for the fiasco,” Bartolo said, as a response to Nationalist MP Joe Cassar’s claims that the inquiry board should scrutinise the Minister’s decisions. “I could have closed my eyes to SkolaSajf’s problems but instead I decided to postpone its opening until everything was in place.”

The Bonello inquiry proposed that the FES board should be reconstituted to allow the presence of high officials from the Education Department. It argued that this would allow better coordination between the FES and DES.

Bartolo was speaking after visiting this year’s Fresher’s Week at the University along with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.  

Opposition slams Bartolo for ‘refusing to shoulder political responsibility’

Evarist Bartolo has chosen not to shoulder political responsibility in light of the SkolaSajf opening fiasco, Nationalist education spokesman Joe Cassar said.

“Bartolo is once again trying to blame other people for his own political mistakes,” Cassar said, adding that the first incident had to do with his decision to stop the stipends of some students.

“The inquiry board’s report shows that Bartolo and Joseph Muscat’s cabinet took rash decisions at too late a stage for the FES and the DES to implement before SkolaSajf opened,” Cassar said.

 “If Bartolo wants to give an example of proper governance, he should start by shouldering the political responsibility that he spoke so much about before the last elections.”