Women's confederation welcomes Chamber support for extended school hours

The Malta Confederation of Women’s Organisations (MCWO) has welcomed the support of the Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise to extend school hours in order that children may enjoy extra curricular activities while their parents are at their respective place of work.

“After-school services should provide extra-curricular activities like sports, dancing, art and craft. Help with homework and doctrine lessons could also be incorporated in these activities.  Such arrangements would relieve mothers from having to run round the island to take their children to such classes, reducing stress, traffic on the roads, pollution, misuse of fuel, and misuse of time and money,” MCWO spokesperson Kate Bonello Sullivan said.

“These services will give parents the much-needed opportunity to continue in their employment whilst enjoying time with their children when they meet after work. At the same time, the country would be making the best possible use of its human resources and getting a return on its investment for the benefit of the whole of society.”

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech made this proposal prior to the 2011 Budget when he said it did not make sense that school finished so early with all extra-curricular activities being held in the evenings.

The MCWO has been lobbying since its establishment in 2004 for the introduction of longer school days so that both mothers and fathers can continue in employment.

But theproposal has had mixed reactions from the Malta Union of Teachers, who don’t expect Maltese teachers to extend their working hours. “80 per cent of new teachers are women who generally opt for this profession because they consider it as the best way to reconcile work and family responsibilities,” president John Bencini had told MaltaToday. “Will parents be ready to pay for the extra expenses involved or are they expecting a free lunch?”

The low participation of women in the labour market, currently the worst in the Euopean Union at only 38%, is an issue that persistently and recurrently surfaces in public discourse.

“MCWO believes that much still needs to be done in order to support dual-earner families, as well as single-parent families - an issue that is not being given sufficient attention,” Bonello Sullivan said.

“It is a known fact that due to the persistent lack of universal childcare and after-school services, many mothers do not have the choice and have to forfeit work. In countries where government has invested heavily in supporting structures for children, women continue to work and the fertility rate in these countries are actually much higher than in Malta.”