It is not enough to build sparkling new schools. Nor is it enough to work hard to attract new industries to Malta.

Both seem daunting tasks, and indeed they are. But none as daunting as the real task ahead: increasing the ability and aptitude of the young Maltese generation in order to provide the new industries of the future with enough manpower with the right mix of skills to sustain the pending inward investment.

In the good (or bad) old days of low cost manufacture, no skills were required except the very normal skills of turning up for work and enduring hours of back-breaking, repetitive, work.

Today’s work, and even more so the work of tomorrow, require higher sets of skills. While in the old days, the manufacturing sector could take on the number of school-leavers walking out of the school with no literacy skills at all, those doing so now are walking out of school to a life of hardship and poverty.

According to all reports, many do not seem to mind, or else society is leading them on and telling them through the unmistakeable non-verbal signals only society knows how to give, that not studying, not learning, not acquiring any skills does not really matter as somehow, somewhere, by means of somebody, they will make do. As countless others did before them. And, in Malta’s particular context, that no government will ever allow them to go poor.

Hence the arrogance, the colossal refusal of so many schoolchildren to do what they must do if they know what’s good for them. Hence, too the futility felt by so many teachers, in all kinds of schools, not just State schools. Many teachers know from experience that the students they had written off as “born losers” and “no hopes” can grow up into responsible parents and hard workers. But they also know of countless examples of highly gifted students whose home background destroyed what the school had accomplished.

There are many strategies for the country to work around this problem, as other countries facing similar problems have done and are doing. Mainly, such strategies are so many versions on the “You can take a horse to the water …” proverb.

The very first line in such a strategy must surely be that of offering those who would want to study, enough opportunity to do so. When the university was, in the blinkered 1980s, ruled by numerus clausus, just opening it up attracted the sheer numbers one finds there now. That was not enough: other would-be students were still missing out. Then this government, which in the 1960s had created the Polytechnic, came up with MCAST, which has proved to be providential.

Even so, however, there are still students and would-be students who are still being kept out of MCAST because of restrictions in the financing of the institution. Miracles have been done, but more are needed until the very last student who wants to study gets in.

Besides MCAST and similar institutions, there are then the multiple opportunities offered to anyone today: people of all ages can learn the computer now, and they can even become experts. Programmes such as the EDCL and now the myPotential programme are extremely important if Malta, with SmartCity round the corner, is to find the ICT technicians to hold down jobs in this new sector. Similarly, new outsourcing and back office work is being attracted to Malta, such as call centres, or Internet betting, or even aircraft servicing – but will they find enough skilled Maltese to fill in the new jobs?

Or will we increasingly see foreigners attracted to the jobs the Maltese were too lazy to take up?

Having said that, one must also remark that there is probably room for far more improvement in the education sector. This newspaper said it as far back as 1996 when the Labour administration started spending money to improve the physical quality of schools: it is not enough to throw money at problems. One must continually measure and see whether the end result justifies the expense. To make an admittedly cruel analogy: all the turf football grounds our youngsters have today do not seem to have improved the quality of Maltese footballers, judging by results. Can one say that about our schools: will all the newly constructed schools translate into less illiteracy numbers, for instance? Or is there something far more strategic and structural that needs to be done?