All through this week the government and the opposition have been issuing statements and counter-statements with regard to the proposal submitted by the Malta Labour Party to increase schooling by one year with the introduction of a reception class in between the kindergarten classes and primary school.

Labour has been making this proposal for quite some time, but recently it seems to want to emphasise it more, with MLP leader Alfred Sant giving more details in his speech to close the party’s annual general conference last Sunday. The MLP seems adamant that, if elected to government, it will be implementing such a system.

This pushed Education Minister Louis Galea into calling a press conference the next day to shoot down Labour’s proposals saying, among other things, that it was more of a “repeaters’ class” rather than a “reception class”, and that apart from creating physical and human resources problems, it would also ultimately mean that students will be leaving the school system one year later than they are doing at present.

Until then, it seemed the usual political game of one party proposing something and the other party finding fault with it. With an election very much on the country’s agenda, this and other similar instances are bound to come up often.

But then the Malta Union of Teachers entered the fray. And, asked by this newspaper to give its comments on the MLP proposal, the position taken by the union was very much similar to that of the government.

MUT president John Bencini told The Malta Independent that, first of all, the proposal will cost the country millions of euros that could easily be invested elsewhere. He also questioned the feasibility of such a proposal, considering that more classes and more teachers would be needed.

Now, the MUT is not exactly a union that is currently hand in hand with the government. Recently, it ordered industrial action at the Institute of Tourism Studies and only this week called a mass rally for later this month during which it will be discussing what it is describing as “injustices” that the teaching profession is faced with in the light of recent decisions taken by the government.

Mr Bencini is also one who never minces his words and says what he has to say, in defence of the teaching profession, irrespective of who is in government or who is commenting on the education sector. And therefore his slamming of the MLP proposal carries the weight of a man who knows his responsibilities towards the union members, and towards the

thousands of students under their care.

Labour’s proposal is a waste of money for the government which has to provide teaching services for an extra year of schooling. It is also a waste of money for those people who send their children to Church schools (those who pay the donation) and private schools. But most of all it is a waste of time, as students will be leaving the compulsory education system at 17 years of age, not 16, and they will effectively be going to University or MCAST, and/or entering the employment sector, one year later than they are doing at present.

It is reminiscent of the Labour days when University courses were opened on alternate years, which meant that students had to waste a year at the end of their post-secondary schooling before taking up a University case. Only that this new proposal will affect each and every child.

Some have interpreted this as a way Labour will be seeking to keep unemployment low, although this factor will eventually even out.

What is sure is that the MLP proposal will not improve the education sector. On the contrary, it will increase the burden on the system as a whole, on the families that will have to support their children for another year and on the children themselves who will throw away one year of their life.