All schools have closed their doors for a long summer break. Most of them will re-open in late September, while others stretch their holidays till early October.

The first weeks of the summer holidays are a mixture of happiness and trepidation for students. On the one hand, they are enjoying their first few days of “liberty” after many weeks behind desks; on the other hand, they await the results of the exams they sat for in the past weeks.

The outcome of these exams will determine their future – and here we are referring mostly to students who sat for their ordinary or advanced level examinations. Once the results are known, they will be able to decide what the future holds for them.

Today, the opportunities for students finishing their secondary or post-secondary schooling are enormous. The University’s doors are open wide and the number of students there continues to increase. The same goes for MCAST, so much so that the government has started working on a project to expand the campus.

The education system has come a long way from the 1980s, when the then Labour government had waged a war against Church schools and entrance to University was limited to a few hundred. The polytechnic, the precursor of today’s MCAST, had also been closed down and trade schools had more of a bad name than a good one.

The Labour Party is presently attacking the government because some students did not even bother to sit for their ordinary level examinations. It is saying that it is a failure in our education system. What the Labour Party does not say, is that whatever governments do to upgrade education levels, there will still be students who show no interest in pursuing their studies, and one reason for this is that they do not get the necessary support from their parents.

In this respect, the government is addressing the issue through courses offered by MCAST, which is going a long way to provide basic learning for students who, for some reason or other, fail to make it through the obligatory school system. But then, there is only so much that one can do. If these students show no inclination to learning, nobody can force them to do so.