Simone, what island are you living on? Surely, not Malta. If your parents told you that Labour paid students to study, they lied to you.

Labour made it well nigh impossible for students to study. Many students had to go overseas to do so at considerable personal expense. Talk about re-writing history! How can you let yourself be brainwashed like this?

In Britain they have to pay about 9 thousand sterling for Uni and have no stipends but it is still part of the top.

It is a very sad situation. That is why over here, when one does not agree in politics, one is hated by the other side.

It is ignorance. Also the reason why you find many agreeing 100 per cent with one party and that is why when one says how things are one is called a ‘pinnur’.

The abolition of streaming was the one thing I opposed vehemently in the PN policy for education.

Everywhere streaming was abolished, standards of education fell sharply. This is one area where the Nationalists became more socialist than the socialists-and as is usual for socialist policies, made a dog’s dinner of it.

Maybe the highly educated parents just studied their subjects to the detriment of anything else?

Are there a variety of books in the house? Are the children reading or wasting time playing digital games? Do the parents take the children abroad, and are they exposed to culture eg museums, historical places, theatre, or just fun parks?

Where do I start with you people? The institutionalised ignorance and myth-making in this country is just out of this world.

Free primary schooling was introduced in Malta in 1847 by the BRITISH. Not by Labour. Your mothers could have sent you, but chose not to.

In 1924, under the BRITISH, schooling became compulsory up to 12 for those already enrolled. Your mothers could choose not to enrol you, and many didn’t.

Schooling up to 16 was made compulsory in 1946. Your mothers’s attitudes haven’t changed. But now it’s compulsory, so they reluctantly send you off to school.

In 1946, Malta was BRITISH, with a National Assembly. Boffa only became PM in 1947.

The teachers I know all concur that the standard of education in state schools has fallen dramatically in the past 5 years. This coincides with the introduction of the Colleges.

If the MLP had destroyed university academic standards in the 1970s, the PN, not to be outdone, destroyed standards in secondary schools. The main pretext for the latter disaster was the notion of ‘inclusivity’.

For the sake of ‘inclusivity’, highly disturbed children with atrocious family backgrounds were taken out of special schools and dumped into ‘normal’ secondary school classes where they create havoc and pulled down the standard of education for all.

‘Inclusivity’ and its anti-elitist philosophy also meant the abolition of the Junior Lyceums, which in some cases had very high standards and were the envy of private schools.

Indeed, could it be argued that the envy of private schools was the cause for the destruction of standards in state schools? They have definitely benefitted from the downfall of the Junior Lyceums in terms of number of entry applications. Unfortunately not everyone can afford their fees which means that poor families that have aspirations for the future of their children will have to send them to the bedlam in state secondary schools.

If you think the present generation are savages, wait till you meet the next generation.

Labour gave students 50 cents a week when a bus ride was 75 cents.

Labour was the party which sold the Teachers Training College to Gaddafi.

Labour NEVER built a new school: Verdala School was a first world war prisoner camp and barracks, Sandhurst School was a military compound and Tal-Handaq School was a cluster of Nissen huts.

There were no learning support assistants and if one was labelled “stupid”, one ended up in a trade school.

Percentages can be misleading. If I look at my circle of friends and colleagues, by and large I can easily conclude that their children are much more educated than they are.

Look at the bright side: in the 1970s we thought we were the centre of the world and nowadays we think we can hold the EU by the balls.

The problem is genetic.

Low IQ parents producing low IQ children.

[Daphne – Compulsory schooling is a British legacy. No Labour government EVER paid students for studying. On the contrary, the Labour governments of 1971 to 1987 did everything they could to stop people studying, including closing down university departments, going to war on medical students, closing down church schools, sending thugs to attack academics on campus, and putting up barriers to university entrance. Where on earth did you get the idea that Labour governments paid students for studying? Whoever told you that was lying. Nothing could be further from the truth.]

And children are moved up each year without even knowing the basics in each subject.

For political correctness, no kids are repeaters but this has backfired and children have relaxed and aren’t bothered.

After all they will always move up to the next year irrespective of them really learning. To top it all we are fixated on teaching in the classroom subject by subject and not taking kids out of the classroom to apply their subjects at a multidisciplenary level. What a pity.