Maltese students will be condemned to cheap labour, PN warns

In front of the unfinished primary school at St Paul's Bay, Adrian Delia warns of cheap labour scourge for Maltese students

Adrian Delia standing in front of the unfinished primary school in St Paul's Bay
Adrian Delia standing in front of the unfinished primary school in St Paul's Bay

Opposition leader Adrian Delia has warned that Maltese students will be condemned to cheap labour, take the government to task for its paucity in its investment in education.

“This is a government that doesn’t invest in the future of the nation’s children and doesn’t believe in education,” Delia said, with an unfinished St Paul’s Bay primary school in the background.

Delia said Maltese students will be competing with the same foreign cheap labour the government has invested in, expressing his disbelief that the primary school promised by the government five years ago is yet to be completed.

“The PN administrations in the past built a school per year, and now we have a container per week,” Delia said, referring to mobile classrooms used in the existing St Paul’s Bay primary school that has grown too small for the locality’s growing population.

“The government doesn’t treat teachers with dignity and they are seen as a cost rather than an investment. This is preoccupying and the PN is committed to give education the importance it deserves,” Delia said, adding that the pre-budget document published by the party in the last week was testament to this.

The new primary school in St Paul's Bay was promised five years ago but remains unfinished to this day
The new primary school in St Paul's Bay was promised five years ago but remains unfinished to this day

PN secretary-general Clyde Puli said the government deficiencies when it comes to education were obvious to all: unions, teachers, parents and students.

Puli referred to snapshots of the dilapidated condition of St Teresa school in St Venera after these made the rounds on social media.

“There needs to be a long-term solution to these crises. The mobile classrooms, for example, were supposed to be a temporary solution but it’s a lengthy temporariness. And as the population keeps increasing how is the government going to enlarge the squad of teachers available?” Puli said.

He announced that the PN was speaking to multiple stakeholders and unions whose ideas and opinions were relevant and necessary, he said.