The "crisis" in the governance of the educational sector is not only not reducing the amount of students who stop their studies, but it also pushing more teachers into leaving the educational sector altogether, PN leader Adrian Delia said after a meeting with the Union of Professional Educators (UPE) on Wednesday.

Delia said that the government is failing to seriously address the amount of students that are not continuing with their studies, noting that while there had been substantial improvements in this regard between 2004 and 2014, there had been no such improvements between 2014 and today. He cited a recent report issued by the European Commission, saying that this had placed Malta in last place in the EU in the classification on how many students continue their studies.

The Opposition Leader said that it was a necessity to address the amount of students who were not continuing their studies as they could end up being taken advantage of as cheap labour, a situation which the government has created itself through its politics of growing the economy through increasing the population. 

Delia cited a MATSEC report, which said that one out of every three students born in 2002 were at risk of being part of the statistic of early school leavers after they failed to pass at least five SEC subjects.

A number of matters were discussed in the meeting with the UPE, the PN said, not least the over-crowding of classrooms which, the party said, had resulted in students in the St. Paul's Bay school having to receive their education in containers.  Matters such as the need for more respect towards teachers and educators were also on the agenda. 

Delia said that if the government is not going to put serious work into the education sector, the country will keep experiencing more educators resigning.  He noted that last year was a peak year for educator resignations, with 57 teachers of educators leaving their jobs, and added that throughout last January a further nine educators had resigned because of the difficulties that they were facing.

He said that teachers and educators deserved respect and support in their work and noted that the government is not dedicating enough resources to assure safety in schools for both teacher and students.

Delia was joined in the meeting by party secretary general and education spokesperson Clyde Puli, social dialogue spokesperson Hermann Schiavone, MEP candidate Frank Psaila and Birkirkara local council candidate Justin Schembri.