Pupils’ personal data to be used for ‘research purposes’ – Education Minister

Education minister Evarist Bartolo responds to Simon Busuttil taking exception on legal notice, says PN leader ‘woke up a little bit too late’ on legal notice.

Contrary to Simon Busuttil's allegations, pupils' personal data would be used for research purposes, Education minister Evarist Bartolo has insisted.
Contrary to Simon Busuttil's allegations, pupils' personal data would be used for research purposes, Education minister Evarist Bartolo has insisted.

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo has rebutted Simon Busuttil’s accusation of “silently” implementing a legal notice to "spy" on students, and has insisted that contrary to the accusations leveled against him and the legal notice, the pupils’ data would only be used for research purposes.

On Sunday, PN Leader Simon Busuttil took umbrage at a legal notice that would enable the education minister and other ministry officials to request private information on students attending state schools.

“Why does the minister need this personal information, is he spying on us? This legal notice which enables the minister to request pupils’ information should be repealed as it is a mistake,” Busuttil said while announcing that the Opposition would be filing a motion calling for its repeal.

However, in a reaction, the education minister defended the legal notice – Legal Notice 76 of 2014 – and insisted that since 2006, the Education Act, in virtue of Article 16, already makes it legal to request data for all matters falling under the ministry’s responsibility, including the students' data.

“The legal notice is very clear in stating that the data is to be used for research purposes and to provide for adequate advice to be given on employment prospects, and to be prepare plans for the students’ training,” Bartolo argued.

“It is also incorrect in stating for the first time, the education minister for education shall have access to the children’s personal data as this has been allowed since 2006,” he said.

In response to Busuttil accusing the minister of “silently” passing the legal notice, Bartolo pulled no punches in explaining that Busuttil had “woken up a bit too late” as the legal notice was published a month ago.

In addition, he said, the Office of the Commissioner for Information and Data Protection had approved the legal notice and a parliamentary question on the legal notice had already been tabled.  

The minister explained that it is not possible to have valid research and analysis without the data to compute, and furthermore, in order to implement Jobs+ initiatives, the data needs to be collected as otherwise focus policies such as the Employability Index and the Youth Guarantee would not be possible.

“Under the previous government important research such as the PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA studies were not published and if the Opposition Leader thinks the country should also do without this legal notice and Article 16 of the Education Act, then he must explain how we would form any meaningful educational policies which are not based on sound research,” he continued.

According to Article 16 (1) of the Education Act, “every directorate," - the directorate for quality and standards in education, the directorate for education services, and any other directorate the prime minister may establish- "may request, collect and verify any information, data and statistics, as may be required for the performance of its functions.”

(2)“A Directorate shall have access to all information which another Directorate, the Colleges and schools may possess, and is entitled to request and obtain all data it may require from students, parents, personnel and from public and private educational institutions, and this data should be given to it within a reasonable time from the date of request.”

(3) “Every Directorate shall have access to other statistics and data of an economic and social nature as required in order that it may perform its functions according to this Act.”