Barricaded from the outside by treacherous mounds and heights of piled books, in the dim flickering light of a mosquito-orbited light bulb, sits myself; a hectic maddened teenager occupied with his studies for his current bout of O-levels, and quite frankly… sick of the SEC.

Amid the pollution of brain waves and hormonal breakdowns, the least thing that us, youth of the nation, would expect to happen, is to come across some inkling that the syllabus that was serving as a backbone for a pass was as up-to-date as the Church’s views on… practically everything, but that’s another issue.

I had attended a series of private lessons for Chemistry at O-level standard, in sheer determination that I would sit through the exam and manage a good grade. I had seriously fantasized that I would get through the paper without a drop of sweat forming on my brow and walk out of the examination centre with the sophisticated cool of John Travolta in Grease… however, I guess I should have known better. At least, in Malta, this was a dream not to be.

Having consulted my school teacher on why certain topics I had covered in the private lessons weren’t being discussed in school, I was led to understand that the syllabus that we were following dated back to 1998… Almost stoneage on the MATSEC timescale.

Now unlike the righteous model citizens that normally contribute to this paper to criticise without giving suggestions for betterment of the nation, I am proposing that there should be some sort of education inspector that would monitor the conditions and syllabi that private tutors are offering. In this way, it can be made certain that common grounds in education are being covered by all, thus bestowing the same chance at passing as anyone else.

Erin Stewart Tanti

Ta’ l-Ibrag