There is no worse or better timing for a teachers’ crisis to take place. Indeed MUT’s call on the government to put its promises into action comes at the most appropriate time of public debate. The assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia has brought to the fore the nation’s urgent need to go back to basics and question the functioning of those values upon which our nation is founded. 

For decades the Maltese have strived to build a modern democracy founded on the rule of law. This rule of law is not some magic trick or some hypnotist’s feel happy trigger. It translates into you not being disadvantaged by any authority established by the government or the executive. It translates into you being treated fairly and for you to receive what is rightfully yours without begging.

It translates into having a normal life – knowing what you want or need and that in following an administrative procedure  you have nothing to fear simply because you are an ordinary citizen. The rule of law, is in fact, what makes each one of us ordinary citizens equal to any power wielding authority in any process or procedure set at law. 

When we become unequal in the eyes of the authorities then we no longer enjoy the protection of the rule of law and the law of the jungle reigns. The law of the gods applying to gods alone reigns, and we all need to seek the protection of a god to get what is rightfully ours. This is what happens when criminals are not prosecuted, when those who cheat the nation’s coffers are not prosecuted, when those who wield political power use it in a way to make others dependent on them. And this is where we are as a nation – this is what Daphne Caruana Galizia has shown us to be and she was close to the truth. 

At these times, we are made aware of the importance of education that indeed teachers characterise as going beyond the syllabus. An education that requires resources and modern teaching spaces for interactive education to takes place that can shape minds and characters rather than simply inform minds. 

For the last year I have been meeting teachers who are placed in old run down schools all telling me how shameful it is that months have been allowed to pass from the firing and charging of Caruana at FTS, while they and their students have been left to languish in school buildings which are not conducive to modern education. 

I am not one completely taken in by the motto of the previous administration of building one school each year. The building itself is not sufficient. The style of the structure is not important, but the shape and the resources it can house is one of the important resources that teachers can be given to be able to teach in modern ways and in ways in which their students understand. I have visited new and old schools and I am struck by the limitations that some old schools place on teachers and students. Small courtyards, a structure that hardly makes it possible for digital teaching, a sense of ambience malaise because no matter how good the school is cleaned and no matter how many coats of paint walls are given the building is simply too old. Buildings which do not have space for laboratories, a school hall, or adequate spaces for support services. 

In all of this, we have had an FTS hang its head in shame because it has not been possible for it to provide teachers and students with a building that can house all their needs for more than a year. Indeed the government’s budget this year has repeatedly promised to build the same three schools which were promised in last year’s budget speech and for good measure in this year’s budget speech the government has thrown in another school. 

But let’s forget for a while the building of new schools. Let’s consider the ambience in which teachers are expected to teach. So you and I might think that a teacher prepares a lesson plan for all the class. Wrong; at secondary level they have to prepare different plans for the same class for the same subject and deliver the different plans in the same lesson addressing different children. You and I might think that a teacher is best suited to shape the lesson scheme according to the needs of her or his class. Wrong; I have met several teachers who have been literally chased out of the profession because they feel continuously watched and chastised for delivering the syllabus in a way that suits the children in class rather than according to a set step by step checklist. 

Teachers have been divested of their professionalism. This is why they need a new agreement that re-establishes respect for this profession. This is why after agreement on the financial package comes a most important stage: agreement on working conditions that really and truly will show full trust and respect for teachers. 

Therese Comodini Cachia is a Nationalist MP and the party’s spokesperson on education.