Education is the most effective strategy for families to grow stronger, said Education Minister Louis Galea during the launch of the parents’ lifelong learning portfolio.

The portfolio helps parents to build a cumulative record of all their accomplishments in various areas, such as their family life, participation in family literacy initiatives and formal adult education courses as well as their contribution towards their children’s school as well as their community.

Dr Galea said the government’s pre-budget document presents a programme of concrete measures aimed at strengthening the family to enable it to contribute to a better quality of life for its members. The minister presented proficiency certificates to 10 parent leaders and teachers who trained as the first parents’ lifelong learning portfolio tutors in Malta. Dr Galea also presented copies of the newly-published portfolio to 100 parents.

The minister said the parents’ lifelong learning portfolio was another key tool in the strategy to help more and more parents realise their full potential, which included entering or re-entering the world of work, for which the portfolio would be an invaluable asset during interviews.

The portfolio was authored by Sandro Spiteri and Victor Galea, respectively senior executive and head of the Parents-in-Education Programme within the Foundation for Education Services (FES). The portfolio is the first of its kind, certainly in Europe.

FES chief executive officer Nora Macelli explained that the portfolio was part of the project Initiating and Managing Community-based Lifelong Learning Centres led by the FES and which was partly funded through the EU Structural Funds for Malta (2004-2006) / European Social Fund. She explained that through this ESF project, 5,215 courses were designed and delivered to 2,038 adults in seven centres around Malta. The project, she said, was carried out in close collaboration with local councils and a network of community-based organisations.

Seventy nine per cent of participants were women, most of whom were housewives for whom these courses were the first steps along their lifelong learning pathway after the compulsory schooling.