Maltese politics has largely become an exercise of distractions. While the political class takes front page treatment with daily scandals of reckless use of public money and cosy relationships with alleged criminals, the fundamental issues requiring public attention to chart out a better future are, at best, relegated to secondary consideration in the inner pages.

The educational sector is one of these secondary considerations right now. A chat with any teacher in our schooling system reveals serious shortcomings in the state’s duty to ensure the motivation of our teaching staff both in terms of conditions of work but also in terms of appreciation and involvement.

The regular stand-offs between teacher unions and Government go to show its neglect to this fundamentally important group of professionals in our society. To put the cherry on the cake, while Government fails to consult teachers in Budget proposals for the educational sectors, the Honourable Minister hires her very own consultant right from the football pitch to give her advice on handling in secondary schools.

While the neglected teachers work their classroom with dedication for almost a year to get €15,000, the Minister’s chosen footballer gets that money for a few hours’ work. The contrast is spectacular. The story is too juicy to let go. The price paid on our educational sector amounts to the additional disrespect to the teachers but also the waste of public discussion which could have been dedicated to a serious exchange on how we should be attracting new teachers to our classrooms. In any other European democracy Minister Caruana would be sacked 5 minutes after the facts were established. In Malta, Abela keeps her on his side, maybe not to establish tricky precedents which could see him lay off half his cabinet.

Distraction is indeed a modus operandi for this labour government. It is not merely something that happens once in a while, it is the core method itself. Let us take the job market as a case study. Right now, Government can boast of practically full employment. Bravo. On the face of it, this is an indicator of a sound labour policy. Wrong. Our unemployment rate right now hides a worrying phenomenon which is crippling private enterprise and promoting a perverse culture of precarious work to the detriment of the workers themselves.

While we are distracted with the full employment pseudo-statistics, government stealthily hides thousands of employment contracts from the public eye through deals with private entities which in turn employ thousands of workers in public service duties. The expertly devised smokescreen hides the reality which would send Maltese public employment figures right through the roof, hundreds of yards above the limits of European Union semester rules. Oh yes, right now we don’t need to talk much about the European semester and its criteria for low public deficit, low inflation and controlled public employment. The corona pandemic led to a suspension of all of that talk in Brussels. However, just to allow us to compare. The Gonzi administration had Europe breathing on its neck asking for a down-size in public service employment when our figures stood at 40,000 employees. Now they stand at 51,000 declared, and possibly up to another 5 to 10,000 hidden through the private entities mentioned above.

Labour’s short-term illusion of providing employment and self-employed contracts to all and sundry leaves very little room for longer-term considerations of the impact of such contracts on the labour market as a whole. This practice seems not to be troubled much with the need to invest in the skills and employability of the workers concerned to ensure they move on to better work conditions in the private sector. And yet, the buzz in Europe right now is all about that employability and upskilling. By some estimates published in Forbes in October, over a third of the jobs we know today will be at the risk of extinction in ten years’ time. You can already see it happening in most fast-food restaurants for instance. The digital counter has replaced the smiling hostess at the counter. Now you just tab your order and then collect your food. Restaurants employing 30 people now make do with 8 or 10. The same is happening on the shop floor in our factories and services industry. How are we adapting curriculum, University and MCAST and the worker’s skills themselves to this rapid digital revolution?

PM Abela cannot lead this country to anticipate change as he is too busy defending his flanks from the daily scandals by all those around him. It is continuity that he promised after all. Michelle Muscat’s canvassing against Chris Fearne taking the top job was not without a price to pay. For Abela to do the right thing with Justyne or Rosianne, he would need to do the right thing with Joseph Muscat and his 60k contract from Vitals.

Peter Agius is an MEP candidate and PN spokesperson.

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