A delegation of students and teachers has presented to Education Minister Louis Galea a copy of an interactive CD that compares life in 16th century Malta, Italy, Sweden, Turkey and Poland. The CD is the result of work carried out in schools in these countries as part of the Comenius, Socrates Programme financed by the EU. The project was coordinated by Zejtun Primary B school.
A copy of the CD has already been distributed to each pupil and member of staff at the school, as well as to the Permanent Secretary Francis Borg and Education Director Cecilia Borg, and has also been given to key personalities in Zejtun, including the local council.
The CD represents part of the Zejtun students’ course work related to the project. More information is available from the School’s website: http://schoolnet.gov.mt/zejtunb
IT teacher Joanne Spiteri was responsible for the technical aspect of the CD, while Mr Sergio Grech, the Zejtun Primary B Comenius project coordinator and national coordinator, was responsible for assembling its contents. The schools that joined the Maltese school in this venture were Istituto Comprensivo “Bertacchi” (Italy), Publiczna Szkola Podstawowa Nr 5 (Poland) Lindåsskolan (Sweden), Ozel Birlik Lisesi (Turkey) and Szkola Podstawowa Nr 2 (Poland). These schools will also be disseminating this CD in their respective countries.
The project’s aims were:
To celebrate the fact that small does not equal insignificant.
To contradict, through student research, the misconception that small communities were/are irrelevant to history.
To provide the students with the opportunity to discover the glorious past of the village of Zejtun and the small island of Malta.
To provide the Zejtun students, aged 8-11, with the opportunity to act as ambassadors for their country through a hands on approach.
To provide the Zejtun students and other students, through the school website, with the opportunity to appreciate other cultures and, through the process, develop a strong sense of tolerance and democracy.
Dr Galea thanked the students and their teachers for the CD, which he viewed with interest. He also noted the enthusiasm and knowledge that the Zejtun students had demonstrated in their presentation and in describing the project and the process they had gone through.
He said that such experiences help young Maltese students more than other European students, because we are an island nation. He said he hoped that other schools would follow Zejtun Primary B school’s example and not just participate in these programmes but rather accept the challenge of coordinating a project under the Comenius programme, as the benefits to the school increased exponentially.
Anyone who is interested in obtaining a copy of the CD is invited to contact the school at [email protected]