Quote 2: “They are sent to Catholic doctrine classes … after a long, boring day at school… Then they are rushed back home and subjected to another hour at least of grinding pressure from fixated mothers who have turned motherhood into a career in which they must prove themselves (the wrong way).”

Quote 3: “Maltese children are subjected to the most relentless pressures and yet they are, on the whole, uneducated, lack general knowledge…”

Isn’t quote 1 contradicting quote 2 and 3? I mean you are stating that we have good educational system, then you are saying that the children have “lack general knowledge”… If we have a good educational system, then our children MUST have a good general knowledge.

If we have a proper educational system, school day would NOT be long — just like Germany, Norway, the Netherlands…etc. If we have a good educational system, the Maltese children would have plenty of free time in the afternoon which can be used, for example, to go to the Musew.

I sincerely believe that our educational system is tad-dilettanti, a complete mess. E.g. afaik the government schools are still using the (extremely) old book named “Id-denfil”.

E.g.2 Year 6 students are still learning by heart practically all the subjects, including the useless religion, the complete boring Social Studies, Mathematics, English and Maltese. Imma kemm nifilhu inkunu boloh: how can they still EXAMINE religion?? Ofc religion can still be a subject thought in school BUT NOT examined. Marks, at that age, must NOT be 100% based on exams — ask the students to do project for the Social Studies, encourage the students to do some research… offer the subject in both Maltese and English…

Kemm nifihu inkunu pajjiz tad-dilettanti!

Sunday schools are long dead in the UK, but I am aware of the complex education system of Malta. I am of the opinion that schools are there to educate, not indoctrinate.

I taught for ten years at St Bernard’s Catholic School in Bethnal Green East London, and am now of the opinion that church schools are divisive and should be abolished.

As you can read in the PS. Malta is part of the EU and so must compile the statistics even if it doesn’t want to do so. So they used EU statistics *(and not the UNICEF) and those of the WHO and OECD. It’s what we call extrapolation in statistics.

Malta is getting a lot of EU money to reach the same European standards. For housing Malta has used the UNICEF figures again and for education the OECD-statistics and not the PISA 2006 report. Of course, the Maltese goverment has to set up a better statistics bureau.

Kids from Malta have an enormous risk of dying in road accidents and because of a very high murder rate the highest in Europe. The facts are the facts.

[Daphne – The infant mortality rate and child mortality rate in Malta are actually among the lowest in the world. Sadly, this is not the case with child abuse.]

And kids from Malta are poor compared with other European kids.

And Maltese kids are fat, very fat indeed, as they get a very bad education. Just read the PISA school report. Maltese kids scoring 178 points less compared with kids from the Netherlands.

Yes it’s hard to read the truth but that’s the state of Malta doing almost nothing for their kids.

I’m from Finland and most people think they know Holland but really never read a paper or have visited the Netherlands like I did.
As a matter of fact they have the lowest murder rate in Europe, the lowest drug deaths, the lowest teen pregnancies, the best school results, the lowest road deaths. fewer poor people then any other country, the best health care. Well I can go on, but just read the statistics of the OECD, UNO, WHO, EU, UNICEF, et cetera etc.

Yes, soft drugs are legalised but that doesn’t mean that they use them. As a matter of fact in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain, etc. drug-use is much higher. And talking about abortion, they have again the lowest figures even compared with countries where it’s forbidden.

This is because the Dutch have real morality and ethics. Just to compare, even the safest state in America – New Hampshire -has a higner murder rate.

And the Netherlands helps out people in war-zones and in poor regions.

First you have to know before you talk.

As to child well-being, I do see a difference between children in different countries. Here in France, children in general are very respectful to their elders, and are not as introverted as Maltese or British children. I’m not sure why. I think it’s perhaps more to do with adults’ reactions to children – on the whole, children are the centre of attention in France, whilst in Britain for example, they are background annoyances – than with the children themselves. Having said that, France comes out quite low on that list.

John, I don’t see what the fuss is all about regarding letting children go out on their own. It’s great for mental development and in this day and age, what is stopping the parents from sticking a transmitter inside the sole of their shoes (nowadays they are the size of a pin).

And its function isn’t really for child molestation, because public kidnappings aren’t that common especially in residential areas.

Mandy – Is this St Gregory’s by any chance?