Last week the government announced it is planning to make computer labs obsolete by e-enabling every child at school while keeping the internet services as much as possible. This latter part is the crucial bit. Yes, in this day and age, all schoolchildren should be e-enabled and the government is doing the right thing in working in this direction. Yet, before the system is up and running, the government must make sure that it will have the ability to monitor computer usage.

The same thing goes for computer usage at home. Computers should not be installed in areas where parents and adults find it difficult to monitor what sites the young one are surfing. They should be placed in open rooms and parents should make it a point to monitor which sites their children are entering. Internet is a great source of knowledge and information, but it can also be a source of harm.

It took the authorities – central government? St Julian’s local council? – some 10 days to repair a growing pothole underneath the Regional Road bridge. As the days rolled by and the rains did their part, the pothole grew wider, bigger and deeper, and there were several near mishaps as drivers tried to avoid the plunge. Why does it take so long to get things done in Malta?

The budget debate – at least the one in Parliament – is now over. Households have these days received full-colour brochures informing them of the measures that have been announced by the government. While it is understandable that the government wants to make the most of it, one wonders why there is the need to spend so much money – taxpayers’ money – in such propaganda.

Talking of brochures, many companies are resorting to distributing flyers to households. But, in their rush to finish the job, the people employed often end up leaving a number of such flyers on doorsteps, rather than place them in letter-boxes. This happens mostly in blocks of apartments. Often, such flyers end up being blown away when it is windy, and often residents do not even bother to pick them up.

Part of a retaining wall in the corner at the top of the road as one drives up from Spinola Bay towards the tunnels has collapsed, leaving stone slabs in the middle of the road and restricting driving space even further. This has made the area rather dangerous, considering that the stretch of road there is already restricted because of the concrete slabs that have been placed there until work on the Manwel Dimech Bridge is completed.

Many schools have adopted a healthy approach by requesting that their students take only healthy food with them to school. This is a good idea, considering that our youngsters are unfortunately among the most overweight in Europe. But then why should tuck shops in the same schools be allowed to sell unhealthy food? Doesn’t this work against the concept of having only healthy food in schools?