Once upon a time, a young, good looking 20-something Maltese speaking guy married his equally good looking, English speaking but equally Maltese counterpart. He ran restaurants, worked late hours. She got lonely had an affair. He then had an affair too and within seven years of paying each other back the marriage was over. They had three gorgeous children together though and managed to share access, (he wasn’t greedy, she wasn’t in permanent victim mode) so it was one of the less bitter, and relatively painless separations to hit the separation and angst ridden, but divorce-free Maltese Islands.
Life went on. He played around for a long time. She settled quicker, was in her mid thirties by then, wanted to marry again but was resigned to it never happening as her new partner had been married too. Kind of normal behaviour don’t you agree, to have been married before once you hit your mid thirties? He, on the other hand, was in his mid 40s when he found the love of his life, who had never married, but had to accept that she could never marry him, unless local laws or EU pressure eased the situation, which is a subject of controversy here.
They both swallowed the bitter pill of never being able to marry again; they didn’t have any of the connections, which appear to help when you need an annulment, so they both concentrated on living in sin (what else were they meant to do?), and dedicated themselves to bringing up their three children as best they could, between two unmarried but fortunately stable modern Maltese families. The kids were all bright and hard working. (No, this isn’t a fairy tale. Really.) Thanks to their English speaking mum, they had beautiful English but weak Maltese, and five years of Maltese private lessons didn’t get them very far.
One passed her O Matsec but got stuck on her A Matsec, which she needed for a particular course. She was lucky though. That year, a child of a very important person who had studied abroad and was brought up in an English speaking Maltese family, wanted to attend the same course she did. Miraculously, the Maltese Matsec was not a requirement that year, so child number one got into university and the course she wanted because in life, and in Malta particularly, two and two do sometimes make five, and miracles really do happen!
A few years later child number two was stuck too. A second Maltese miracle seemed very far away He was brilliant at IT, one of Austin Gatt’s golden boys who was planning to take Smart City by storm, (or work in real estate!) if and when it happened. He didn’t pass his Maltese Matsec, even at O level and was stuck. But because there was a shortage of IT students the Maltese requirement was waived, by the back door so to speak. The government started contracting out the courses to private colleges, so child number two who couldn’t pass his Maltese Matsec got lucky too and started attending a private college. His hard pressed parents (you know broke, well spoken but middle class for all the good that does you) were also able to apply, or strictly speaking their child was eligible for a grant and everyone was happy, except perhaps those who lost private lesson income because he didn’t have to do Maltese any more. And of course all those other kids who didn’t pass their Maltese and were not IT students because they were stuck!
Child number three was the brightest, brilliant at the sciences, but may have turned out to be the unluckiest of them all. She passed all her exams easily. She obtained two A grades in her A levels but panicked in the third and got one grade lower than required to enter (she passed her Maltese by the way).
Like her parents, she didn’t really believe in miracles, so she dutifully started going to private lessons to get the required grade the following year. Then, weeks after university started, one student was accepted for the same course for which she had failed to make the grade, and this lucky, miracle-prone student had obtained the same grade she had. Mysterious don’t you think? They had all asked for this famous revision of the paper and there it was in black and white – the student was accepted, and although no marks were given for one question, it still would not have been enough to obtain the grade needed for that particular course. So how did she get in? What changed the examiners’ mind? Was it a level playing field? Or was it another miracle, but one which child number three did not benefit from because it was only meant for one student?
This is not a fairytale. I have simply combined the experience of three families into one. I have not given more explicit details because I hope justice can still be done, and for these kind of games to be stopped immediately. We think divorce is immoral here (you know people wanting to marry again instead of living in so-called sin), yet we think nothing of these immoral cat and mouse games that can literally destroy our children’s future.
If nothing is sacred in this country we should at least have a level playing field as far as our children accessing higher education is concerned. In this case there should be no pjaciri and no miracles. The same rules must apply to all. Do we really believe this is happening or are we all just resigned to the occasional Maltese miracle?
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