According to the National Euro Changeover Committee (NECC), students and teachers in their thousands accessed the euro skola portal: www.skola.gov.mt/euro.

The portal is becoming more popular as the changeover date gets closer. It contains five games aimed at different age groups aimed at exposing students to euro coins.

NECC spokesman Melvyn Mangion said “Students tend to learn faster and providing the right tools to them will help the NECC to reach their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. This website is one of the different tools made available for our students in order to learn what the changeover from the Maltese lira to euro is all about.”

The training within the education sector (state, Church and independent schools) will be two-pronged. It will consist of training of teachers and training of officials responsible for the school administration and cash handling.

The Education Sectoral Committee had previously identified two major groups that needed to be trained separately: primary-level teachers (teaching nine-11-year-olds) and secondary-level Mathematics teachers.

The committee organised a series of conferences highlighting both the curricular and the administrative aspects of the euro changeover. In addition to this, the NECC has also been providing Staff Development Programmes to all schools requesting the service. The final step in the process is the implementation of a six-hour training course for peripatetic teachers, which is to be held in September 2007.

The NECC also intends to offer training to officials responsible for school accounts and cash handling, taking in mind the uniformity in state schools accounting systems and the diversified situation in non-state schools.

In addition, each student in year three to year six classes during the coming scholastic year will receive a euro wallet consisting of plastic euro coins and low-denomination notes. A “pool” of such plastic money kits will also be provided for all primary schools so as to ensure adequate resources and the efficient use of such.

During the same scholastic year, the NECC will launch the euro challenge competition for secondary school students in Forms Three, Four, and Five. This competition is funded by the European Commission.

The concept behind the competition is to allow students to develop an educational booklet, by students and for students, that deals with the European Monetary Union and the euro in a multi-faceted manner. Prizes include a familiarisation visit to European institutions. In addition to this, the winning product will be professionally developed by a publishing house and distributed to educational institutions. The European Commission is also considering endorsing the publication as an official Commission document.

Each team reaching the final round will also receive a book token for each team member, with the winning school also benefiting from a EUR500 book token as a contribution towards the development of their library resources.