Carmelo Abela (photo), MLP main spokesperson for education, listed claims which he said the Nationalist Party campaign was making, and which he termed as lies. Labour would not be eliminating the stipends, as the PN billboards claimed, he said. Indeed, students would benefit because those who received stipends would be paid back the VAT charged on educational materials such as computers and books.

Another claim was that Labour would give sack the facilitators, but the MLP had already said the work these assistants did was very important and that there should be more training for them.

Unlike what the PN campaign was saying, the reception class proposal by the MLP would be beneficial to students, as it had been found to be so in Europe. The reception class measure had been brought up by experts at an education seminar eight years ago and its proceedings had been published by the ministry of education itself.

Mr Abela said the PN campaign was trying to hide their thinking about the Matsec re-sits, which they wanted to be held in November/ December, meaning that students doing the re-sits would have to wait a full year to resume their class. The PN’s campaign had also declared they would raise the fees for Matsec examinations by e4.66 per subject, while the fee for a revision of a full paper would be e116.47.