A lot has been said and written about the Malta Labour Party’s proposal to introduce what it says is a reception class right in between the last year of kindergarten and the first year of primary schooling.

The Malta Union of Teachers has said that it has not been consulted about this proposal, and president John Bencini has said that the union is against such a concept. He said that children are adequately prepared for primary school after spending two years in kindergarten.

The Nationalist Party has described the idea as a repeater class, as it would mean that before being “promoted” to primary school, five-year-olds would have to stay an extra year in limbo.

For its part, the MLP is insisting that this extra year would give a more solid foundation to young children before they start their compulsory schooling years. The PN has replied that the present education system is already strong as it is and students do not need to spend another year before they join primary school. The PN has also said that such an idea would mean the need for more resources and facilities, to which the MLP replied that it is ready to invest more in education.

The Malta Independent has already spoken out against such an idea, saying that an extra year is not necessary not only because it will mean an unnecessary burden on the state and families, but also because the reception class would be a waste of time.

What has not been said in the overall equation is that if the MLP is elected to government and if it carries on with the idea to introduce this reception class, there will be a one-year vacuum in the education sector, a vacuum that the country can ill-afford at a time when it is growing and needs more human resources.

For one thing, if the concept is implemented, in the first year of its implementation there will be no Year One students, because these would have been kept in the reception class. What is going to happen to the Year One teachers? Will they be given a year off? Will they accept to teach five-year-olds in this reception class? Will they be forced to do so?

The one-year vacuum will move up through the education system as the years go by, and the same questions have to be asked again. In the second year of the reception class system, there will be no Year Two class. What will happen to the teachers? Will they be “relegated” to teach Year One students?

And so on and so forth until we arrive at the time when students reach the end of their compulsory schooling age. The time will come when there will be no intake at sixth form level, always because of this year vacuum, and no intake at University too. Can Malta afford to have one year without students joining the university?

The Malta Labour Party criticises the PN because, it says, the current education system is not producing enough. If the reception class concept materialises, there will come a time when the “production” rate will be zero. There will be no students graduating from University.

It has been said over and over again that Malta’s human resources are its biggest assets. What the MLP is proposing is that Malta’s human resources are frozen for one year. It would mean that the country stops “producing people” for one year, possibly leading to an employment crisis too.

The MLP should seriously re-think its idea to introduce the reception class if it is elected to government. Wasting a year is something that the students involved, and the country in general, cannot afford.