The PN and the middle classes are in agreement on one area.

Education is one of the PN’s three top priority focal points for action and investment (along with the economy and the environment). The importance of education is also central to middle class thinking and values. It is in fact sometimes used as one of the many ways one can define what class people belong to, and that is the importance they give to education.

And yet I don’t think the middle classes feel that this is currently a priority area, or that their concerns are being addressed, or that this area is giving back the investment it should. Why do the middle classes feel like this when there is no doubt that tons are being invested, and that among other things we have one of the most enviable child-teacher ratios in Europe – one teacher to 12 pupils no less – if statistics are to be believed?

There was also quite a bit of soul searching done at the last PN general council, with speakers saying the party’s PR is not what it should be and others telling party members to go and knock on people’s doors to spread the word about the good things that are being done.

And of course this would help. But the problem is not only with people’s perceptions. It may be convenient for some in the PN to think its only the perceptions out there that are wrong. The crux of the matter is really this, and it came home to me after I wrote two articles bemoaning our education system, with its inflated emphasis on learning by rote, too much pressure starting too young, as well as the interests involved in keeping things as they are, which appears to be benefiting certain educators much more than our children.

Interestingly enough, these articles generated more public response, particularly from women than anything else I have written. So many women, young mums, middle-aged mums, grandmothers who remember less stressful days when their children were growing up, took the trouble to stop me, even crossing the road to tell me what they thought, and essentially how they agreed with me that the education system as it is, is failing our children.

Yet are the politicians aware of this perception among our middle classes in general and middle class mothers in particular?

Most of those who spoke to me, or wrote, or e-mailed me, were middle class women. This is hardly surprising because it is generally mothers (even when they work outside the home) who spend the time supervising their homework, ferrying them to those ever so necessary private lessons (to this country’s shame), and living with our children through the trials and tribulations of the Matsec system. The minute that’s over, mums rightly fret about the way children freak out in Paceville where bars are still serving alcohol to children, where children can be seen sprawled down on the roads, and where our young children generally end up after 10 years surviving, instead of being nurtured by our education system.

This is country where 15-year-olds go out in the evening and don’t want to come back home till one in the morning, 18-year-olds at five, and this is normal stuff, as are children who are practically alcoholics, and drugged teens.

When some of our political classes talk about education they talk in terms of progetti, so many schools being refurbished or built and the like. Now this is important too, but people, and middle class people in particular, want a bit of vision. Education is not just about progetti and fancy schools. You can be taught brilliantly in Nissan huts if you have motivated kids and teachers and supportive parents.

Yet what many parents are experiencing today are high costs and a great deal of stress. Politicians who want to appeal to the middle classes need to remember how a full third don’t go to government schools any more; so much of the political speak about government schools, vital though it is, is not for them. They are paying school fees. In addition they have to pay for private lessons because most average kids can’t get through Matsec without some extra help in a few areas. And the result is they don’t see fulfilled, independent and creative children. They just see a whole generation of children who are over materialistic, overstressed and over the top when it comes to finding ways to relax.

If the PN wants to shepherd some of its lost middle class sheep back into its fold, it has to start addressing the concerns of that class. They are very real, very serious and go to the heart of the moral and cultural quandary this country is in. If we haven’t been fair to this generation of children who have to go through the Matsec exam system now, let’s try to make it better for the next.

Now that’s a promise I want to hear from all our politicians, of whatever political colour.