Denying Labour Party claims that MATSEC re-sits were going to be held in November/December, education minister Louis Galea invited students to visit the MATSEC website http://www.home.um.edu.mt/matsec/ which made clear that the re-sits would be held in September.

The facts were, he added, that the November/December proposal had been made some three years ago by independent experts and it had been turned down. Its rejection was because neither he, nor the government, wanted students to miss being able to resume their courses in October.

Through their misleading rumours, Labour exponents were trying to disguise the mistake in their official proposal of a reception class between kinder and primary, making five-year-old children repeat a year, Dr Galea said.