The Nationalist Party-led government during this legislature met its commitment to placing education as a main pillar of its policy, said Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi yesterday.

Speaking during a party activity in Gozo, the prime minister said the government’s education policy has produced four colleges, a new post-secondary school, embellishment of 130 schools, and a total investment of e185m in the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST).

Education has always been a matter of principle for the PN and that is why it always had the people’s support, said Dr Gonzi. He said that Malta had invested heavily in employment, education and the environment with an aim to meet its target of “Making our children succeed”.

In this regard, he said, the country reached a large number of targets in different sectors, as was witnessed by the prime minister when he visited a Maltese scientist at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland.

He reiterated his government’s commitment towards education, which was made tangible by the building of the St Ignatius College, St Benedict College, the Giovanni Curmi School in Naxxar and the Gozo College. The government also invested in IT programmes for everyone and will continue to invest money in the MCAST where it had already made investments of e70million and e15million. The prime minister said that through such investment MCAST was providing over 100 courses in the vocational sector.

Dr Gonzi said the government invested e6.3million in school embellishments in Gozo as well as e7million in the new Gozo College. He said that the PN-led government will continue investing in education without making distinctions and criticised the Malta Labour Party for not speaking about education. He maintained that education was not a priority for the MLP as during its last spell in government it reduced its financial allocation to university and students’ stipends.

Prime Minister Gonzi said the government is encouraging people to further their studies in order to grab every opportunity they come across, be it locally or abroad, as the government was financing students who wanted to study abroad. He reiterated the need for the government to sustain the University of Malta in its growth and its bid to provide the best possible education.

The Employment and Training Corporation was also providing many courses aimed at those workers who wanted to change their jobs and people, especially women, wanting to rejoin the world of employment.

Dr Gonzi pointed out the need for more students trained at the Institute of Tourism Studies in the light of the positive results achieved by the tourism sector with increases registered in tourist arrivals.

The prime minister said Malta was achieving a high level of success as was recognised by the European leaders who visited the island on 12 January to celebrate the country’s adoption of the euro. This success, said Dr Gonzi was achieved because the Maltese are a diligent people that always seeks to further its studies and grab the opportunities thanks to the direction and vision of the PN in government.

Dr Gonzi said in the coming weeks, the people must choose between a party that thinks the Maltese are small fry and the PN which believes in the Maltese and is ambitious. He criticised the MLP’s proposal for devaluating the lira that would have pushed up inflation by at least 10 per cent.

The prime minister said the MLP had opposed the creation of SmartCity and had described the $300million (e205million) investment as speculation. He said that the PN’s faith in the Maltese could be seen in its paying stipends to 15,000 students, which the MLP had converted from stipends into loans. The same faith could be seen in the training the government was providing to ex-textiles industry workers, the most of whom have already found another job.

The Maltese, said Dr Gonzi, have to choose between the MLP that continuously discourages the population or the PN that continuously invests in the people in order to improve the country’s quality of life.

He stated that the government had a vision of making Malta one of the best countries in the world. Dr Gonzi said the government managed to attract the best of foreign direct investment while having the highest number of gainfully occupied, highest ever tourist arrivals, a healthy services industry and the lowest number of registered unemployed.

Gozo was also benefiting from these records, he said, especially regarding tourist arrivals. To this end, said Dr Gonzi, the government invested e7.2million sewage treatment plant in order to safeguard the waters around Gozo. He added that the island will also benefit from e85million in EU funds.

Dr Gonzi held that the people will continue choosing PN as its ambition is to continue achieving and consolidate the successes the country was enjoying