Negotiations over the MCAST collective agreement are taking place, Malta Union of Teachers President Marco Bonnici and Prime Minister Robert Abela confirmed on Sunday, while addressing a Labour Party political activity.

The Labour Party activity focused on youths, education and sports. Bonnici, in a short intervention, said that he appreciated the Prime Minister's recent remarks regarding the situation at MCAST, "Where he practically told us to go and negotiate and that resorting to a tribunal is not a solution." Bonnici said that is what happened and this week negotiations took place, and "hopefully in the next weeks we will continue, with the aim of reaching an agreement."

Addressing the event later, Prime Minister Robert Abela made reference to what Bonnici said.

Abela said the government closed the strongest collective agreement with teachers of church and state schools, and believes that in the same spirit of agreement "I believe we are capable of closing all the questions with MCAST lecturers around the negotiating table in the coming days, for there to be justice with students and lecturers."

Earlier this month, lecturers at the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) held a protest outside the administration building of the college in Paola as negotiations on their collective agreement dragged on. The union had also issued fresh directives soon afterwards. For the past two years and nine months, MUT said on that day, it was involved in negotiations of a new collective agreement with MCAST. This collective agreement involves eight grades and includes Lecturing grades, Student Support Services grades, Student Mentors, Directors, Deputy Directors, Technicians grades, Learning Support Educators and Senior Research Officers.

During his speech, Abela also mentioned an issue within the education sector. He said that a point that experts in the sector drew his attention to, is that when moving from primary school to middle school "there was a substantial number of students who we were losing from the education system. You would start seeing the absenteeism rate rise, and there is another reality where students advance from primary school to middle school and they would have difficulties with reading and writing, and we are speaking about 12%, which isn't a small amount."

He thanked the education ministry for identifying this reality and for acting by creating a pilot project that is so far operating in four primary schools with agreement with the MUT and other stakeholders, which he said will officially be launched in the coming days. The plan is for the pilot project to expand, he said. He said the project focuses on three aspects - school, the community and family.

"Experts in every school will identify the challenges certain students face. After it is identified, they will see if it relates to a challenge related to the family, a challenge related to the community, or a challenge emanating from the school, and then after it will be identified there will be a holistic process to talk to other experts, go to families or communities where the challenge emanates, for that challenge to be addressed and a solution be found. We cannot lose a single boy or girl from our education system, as our children deserve better."

During the event, Abela also spoke about whether the country should have the concept of commercialisation of sports facilities. He believes there should be balance between the rights of residents of the area, that the projects be sustainable but not exaggerated in size and that they also keep balance with the environmental aspect. "But for me the choice not to enter such discussions is not there "

During his intervention, the Prime Minister also spoke about the upcoming family law reforms.

He said that there are realities where, despite all efforts from stakeholders for families to strengthen, can still lead to the breaking apart of a family. That is why, he said, "we implemented a process through which we will undertake a holistic reform of the family courts and family law to meet these realities."

"The principle that motivated us," he said, "is the supreme interest of minors."

He said where there is a family breakdown, one must ensure that children never end up victims of litigation between a couple. He said that the aim of mediation sittings is to focus on reconciliation between a couple, but where it doesn't succeed, one cannot continue having a situation where court cases go on for years, "where the children would have become adults only remembering their parents fighting. It is something we don't want to happen anymore."