Millionaire cabinet minister Manuel Mallia has taken THREE free places at church schools, not one, and is pulling his sons out of fee-paying St Edward’s College
Manuel Mallia queuing for the free-school ballot for three free places for his children
It escaped my notice that while millionaire cabinet minister Manuel Mallia’s daughter’s name was drawn by ballot for a free place at a church school, her twin brothers were also selected under the category ‘Kazijiet Umanitarju Gravi’, in need of a learning support assistant.
Their names have also been published on the Malta Diocese website and their selection, and the reason for it, is public.
Mallia’s twins sons currently go to St Edward’s College, where the fees are the highest in Malta. Those fees are justified because the school practises inclusive education and his sons, who are severely autistic, receive the care and attention they need there.
So there is no way you can say that he is pulling them out of St Edward’s because they’re not getting the care they need. He’s pulling them out because he thinks he can get the same care for free elsewhere. But in doing so, he is taking not one but two places for disabled children from parents of disabled children who cannot afford to pay fees elsewhere.
His disabled children are lucky that their father can afford to pay for good care for them, but their father has instead taken two free places reserved for disabled children from disabled children whose parents can’t pay as he can.
Mallia has every right to apply for free places at church schools for all his children as the church does not means-test parents despite the fact that the number of places is restricted unlike with state schools, state colleges and the state university, which must offer free education to all.
But this is not a matter of whether he has a right, but whether he is right to do so. With his bulging bank account, he can pay school fees and leave the free places to those who can’t afford to pay for private care and education.
There is no limit to some people’s phenomenal stinginess. As the vernacular has it, il-vera marda.
Some of us who had very little money when our children were young because we were young ourselves nonetheless went through all sorts of privation to pay the fees which would get them the best possible education. And our children were not even disabled. There were, at the same fee-paying schools, several children who were intellectually and physically disabled to varying degrees. Their parents clearly reasoned as we did.
Now here is a millionaire who believes that he needn’t pay for something that he can get for free, even if the thing he gets for free is not as good as the thing he pays for, and even if it means that in doing so, he is depriving others who are not as fortunate of school-places they desperately need because they do not have access to a fee-paying alternative.
I think it’s shameful behaviour towards his own children and most especially, towards the children of those less fortunate than he.
Actually, I think it’s disgusting.
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In hedging his bets Manwel Mallia is also revealing just how long he thinks this Labour power high will last.
Looks like the ground is of clay formation for Manwel Mallia.
Now there’s an answer to the queries made by Makjavel in an earlier post on the same subject.
When did anything being ‘wrong’ ever stop certain people from going ahead? The tragedy is that most people vote according to what people say rather than what people do!
Il-veru imissu jisthi, jiehu post min veru ghandu l-bzonn.
Trid tkun taf tisthi l-ewwel. U kieku jaf kif, kien imur jaghmel ix-xirja huwa stess minghand il-Lidl?
Tiffranka ftit minn hawn u ftit minn hemm, u l-miljuni telghin.
Disgusting man
How cheap can he get. He is not only getting out of paying school fees, but also getting out of paying for his children’s learning support assistants, which he has to do at independent schools like St Edward’s.
This is not true. Nowadays the government pays for LSAs at independent schools too – if the child is statemented.
And yet again, the survey carried out by The Malta Independent on Sunday places Mallia as the minister who should be scrapped by Muscat. The latter won’t give in, obviously; not after scrapping his Shadow Minister Herrera and making Mallia Minister of the Interior instead.
What is the source of Manuel Mallia’s power and influence over Muscat?
The daughter’s miraculous good placing is a bit fishy to me as siblings of disabled children used to be given preference but not anymore. The sons are autistic and qualify under the Grave Humanitarian Needs section.
Not necessarily
“3.1 Siblings may apply as Other Applicants for admission into the same Year (e.g. twins), or different
Years. If the elder sibling is awarded a place, the younger sibling will also be awarded a place as
per Siblings criterion (para. 1b). Therefore, on the Application Form, each sibling must declare
who the other sibling is and which Year of Admission the latter is applying for. If this requirement
is not adhered to, the Criterion for Siblings will not apply. ”
http://ms.maltadiocese.org/WEBSITE/2013/CHURCH-SCHOOLS/REGULATIONS/Regulations%20Eng%20K1%20-%202014-2015.pdf
Il-vera bniedem JAQQ u qammiel.
Minister Mallia’s behaviour is an insult to a so called Socialist Party. He would have made a better minister in a Scrooge Party .
Well, what can you expect of someone who steals water from a public fountain to save on paying for water out of his household taps?
Ja hanzir.
That’s socialism for you. They try to make us believe they are the champions of the poor and underprivileged but then have no scruples about having other’s rights and properties for themselves.
I did not know that his sons are autistic.Daphne do you think it is right to perch other people stories here?Everyone is entitled to privacy.
[Daphne – The fact that you did not know his twin sons are autistic does not mean that the fact is not public, even on the Malta Diocese website which actually makes the problem sound much worse (‘grave humanitarian reasons’). Also, in the 21st century people do not hide their children’s disabilities or consider them a cause of shame or embarrassment, so I don’t know what you’re on about.]
Why should saying that someone has autistic children be considered an issue?
Also, if it’s relevant to the issue at hand i.e. that he’s a money-grabbing s*** who doesn’t care about other people, isn’t that even more reason to mention it?
If it did happen to be a private matter, unlike the present case, well, tough. He’s not entitled to privacy, not when everything he does is completely shameless and done is such a way that so many details of his life are inevitably exposed.
I can’t understand the attitude of some people, all in the name of some sort of weird, misplaced sense of decency, without ever realising how very, very affronted they should feel by this man’s behaviour, in the name of real decency.
I mean, really, it’s like lying down nice and still in the middle of the road, while someone runs you over.
On a different note.
It makes my blood boil when people like Frank Psaila who headed PN propaganda in the Gonzi years writes, among other stupidities:
‘Unless the PN becomes the broad coalition it once was under the Fenech Adami administrations, it stands little chance of being returned to power anytime soon.’
Psaila conveniently forgets that after the Eddie Fenech Adami years the party was headed by Lawrence Gonzi who brought the PN to the sorry state it’s in.
If the PN was a broad coalition then and lost that after the Fenech Adami years, even Frank Psaila ought to have enough grey matter to work out who was responsible.
He was warned that the PN was going downhill at least four years ago and I was one of those who warned him. Now that these people created this disaster the least they can do is stop pontificating and let others try to clean up the mess.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/39531/a_blessing_in_disguise#.U4zYvigkS6I
The relevant Maltese idiom is?
Issa johodhom mieghu.
It’s unbelievable what stingy rich people do:
1. shopping from Lidl;
2. stealing water from public fountains;
3. importing maids from Romania and then working them round the clock on one meal a day;
4. using policemen as caterers;
5. pulling their disabled children out of fee-paying schools and sending them to free schools, where they take up places which should go to others who can’t afford private schooling.
6. Getting a wife from Romania because it’s cheaper than getting one from Russia.
Why are you all surprised ? Expect worse .
Cuschieri joffri l-karita u Mallia jiffanga minn fuq dar il-poplu. Taghna lkoll!
Ghandu biex jiftahar il-PM b’Manuel Mallia l-parassit.
What a disgusting leech.
Independent schools practice inclusion so much that up till some time ago it was the parents themselves who had to pay the learning support assistant’s salary, apart from the school fee.
[Daphne – And that’s as it should be. Or do you expect other children’s parents to pay their salaries? Inclusive education is not a matter of learning support assistants and who pays for them. It’s to do with the entire structure and organisation of the school and its teaching methods.]
I agree with you. Of course that’s the way it should be. And learning support assistants are just an important cog within the entire system of inclusion.
MY point is – up till some time ago, independent schools did not even provide those.
[Daphne – You are wrong. Twenty-two years ago one of my sons was at a private kindergarten where around 20% of the pupils were mentally or physically disabled. They were integrated with the rest of the class, with the required support. Twenty years ago, at San Anton School, disabled children were integrated into the mainstream, again with the required support where necessary. I cannot speak for other independent schools.]
Mintoff politics. Jew b’xejn jew xejn.
[Daphne – That was KMB.]
Niftakarha sewwa dik l-ghajta tal-KMB.
Ghexthom dawk iz-zminijiet, b’uliedi jitghallmu bil-mohbi fid-djar privati u s-sorijiet ta’ St Joseph (u nahseb anki ohrajn) maqfulin gewwa wara l-kancelli tal-iskola u mghassa mill-pulizija.
Dak, precizament, li qed jippratika Mallia – idahhal l-uliedu fi skola b’xejn biex ma jhallas xejn.
Insaqsi. Tghid m’illum il quddiem meta nigu ghall-gabra annwali ghall-iskejjel tal-knisja hemm xi hadd jippretendi li jien ghandi nghin ukoll lil ulied Mallia.
Inkompli nsaqsi. Jista’ jkun ukoll li bis-sahha ta’ ulied Mallia il-kontribut tal-Gvern lill-iskejjel tal-knisja jizdied b’mod sostanzjali mis-sena d-diehla? Ghandek cans (‘c’ bit-tikka) nisma’ min jghidli.
Truly disgusting.
Ghabra w rih, u kull ma ghandek hawn thallih.
Kul u tpaxxa, ghax minn hawn ghal gol-kaxxa.
This is what I call a clear abuse and a total lack of a person without a moral conscience.
He has all the right in the world to get free schooling for his children. But the least he can do is to show some basic form of charity. Leave the few available free places for the people who really cannot afford NOT to send their children to free schooling.
I am sure that at some point in time he will have to face the fact that money does not bring happiness. Helping others brings real happiness and peace in one’s life.
To be honest, he is not the only super rich parent who has applied and successfully gotten his children into a church school. In the years my children were in church schools I met quite a few like him.
Ta’ b’xejn lil kulhadd joghgob.
Jew b’xejn jew xejn, as KMB said. And Manuel Mallia is going for the b’xejn.