But his mother was very jealous of me and my children because they were intelligent.

So it was coming from his mother as I believe she used to compare her son to mine. I never spoke to her again.

[Daphne – I can’t say your attitude was particularly helpful.]

[Daphne – Boys are not bitchy, Persil. And as for your daughters, they may not have been bitchy to others, but others may have been bitchy to them, or they will have observed displays of bitchiness by others to others.]

Cat,

The systems I described run that way in France.

France is where the Orders of The Convent of the Sacred Heart and St. Joseph’s – as we know them in Malta – originated and that is the reason for quoting how these Orders are run as schools: for there to be a direct parallel.

Would the church school your children are at form part of these Orders or Orders present in Malta?

There may be particular provisions according to Order. I do remember that Sacred Heart in Malta also used to include a section referred to as “the poor school” before students at this section were, I believe, integrated into the mainstream.

These two Orders in particular maintain operations in a wider international context, which is why I am of the opinion that the way they are run in Malta may be updated and refined to reflect a broader solution that would be more just in the local “market.”

This, without having touched upon Universities abroad run by other Orders, also present in Malta.

Valletta fountain water at that.

How does it behave when it comes out on top? Like a Super One reporter who finds himself in a real job which he lets someone else do for him while he calls it ‘delegation’.

Can you tell us about the underdog? How does it behave when it comes out on top? What makes it tick? (surely, ‘tock’? Ed.)

As far as I know the main topic of all this was not to discuss my own level of English and Maltese. I was just stating my opinion.

[Daphne – Yes, I know. And I appreciate that. But my point is that people have an unjustifiably high opinion of Catholic schools in Malta precisely because expectations are so low and no distinction is made between schooling and education. Also, we were programmed to believe that Catholic schools were by definition good because you had to pay to go there, and later win a place in a lottery. The reality is that they are not good at all – or rather, no better than state schools at this stage – and the results are there for all to see, with people able to pass exams but still somehow unable to think, write, formulate thoughts and arguments and express them coherently and properly in at least one of two languages. My own school was a failure in that respect, lest you think I am suggesting otherwise. Arlette Baldacchino of Imperium Europa and I came up through the same system in the same year. Yet she is completely illogical, inarticulate and incoherent. There were many others like that in the same year, but I can mention only her because she is a public person. Worse still, some of my classmates performed absolutely disastrously at school and were literally written off as hopeless, leaving with no O-levels or maybe just a couple. Then in their early 20s they went to university and progressed right through a first, second and third degree, and are now working in academia and the professions. And that means the school failed them catastrophically in not only missing their potential but actually writing them off as disasters because they couldn’t cope with the tedious rigmarole of verbs by rote and logarithms.]

I live in Italy. My daughters go to a Catholic school run by nuns and nothing is free.

The systems Ms Tabatha White referred to do not exist in Italy. Church schools do receive a subsidy from the state, but parents pay for everything.

Parents with more than one child at the school do not even have lower fees. The fees are high but not as high as those of non-Catholic private schools.

From the point of view of my discussion, I can clarify that these are the same Sacred Heart, St Joseph’s etc. schools and not only are they mixed and up to sixth form level, but they also do boarding.

I would like to repeat yet again, it would be superb if the church in Malta had a profound rethink on these lines.

The lottery system was a strategic MLP move that served no one any ultimate good (let’s look beyond the money factor), at the end of the day.

The lottery system should be made obsolete.