There are some things we learn because they help us pass an exam, others because they prepare us for employment, and some because they are simply considered part of becoming a well-rounded adult.

Knowing how to save somebody's life should surely fall into that last category.

The Malta Resuscitation Council's renewed call for CPR training to become a compulsory part of the secondary school curriculum deserves serious consideration, not simply because teaching more people CPR is obviously desirable, but because it would help change the way we think about responding to medical emergencies.

Too many people still see CPR as something for doctors, nurses, paramedics or those who happen to have taken a first-aid course.

Yet when somebody suffers a cardiac arrest outside hospital, none of those people may be standing beside them.

The first person able to help could be a colleague, a neighbour, a friend or a complete stranger, and those first few minutes matter enormously.

As MRC vice chairperson Marius Caruana explained in an interview with this newspaper, every minute in which nothing is done following a cardiac arrest reduces a person's chance of survival by around 10%.

An ambulance cannot always arrive within those first crucial minutes. The person already at the scene therefore has an important role to play.

This is why CPR should become a basic life skill rather than knowledge possessed by a relatively small section of society.

Schools are the obvious place to begin.

Children are already taught how to respond to fires and other emergencies. Teaching them how to recognise a cardiac arrest, call 112, perform chest compressions and use an automated external defibrillator should become just as normal.

Students spend years learning material across a wide range of subjects, much of which they may rarely encounter again once they leave the classroom, yet a practical skill that could one day mean the difference between life and death is still not considered an essential part of the curriculum.

Making CPR compulsory in secondary schools would also mean that access to this knowledge would no longer depend on which school a child attends or whether that school happens to organise such training.

However, one lesson during adolescence cannot be the end of it.

People forget, and someone who performed CPR on a mannequin at the age of 14 may understandably hesitate when confronted with a real emergency 20 years later.

Training therefore needs to follow people through different stages of life, whether through driving licences, workplaces or regular health and safety courses.

The objective is not to turn everybody into a medical professional. It is to give ordinary people enough knowledge, and crucially enough confidence, to act until professional help arrives.

Malta is often very good at discussing what should change immediately after a tragedy. The attention lasts for days or weeks before inevitably moving elsewhere.

We should not need another tragedy to remind us of the importance of CPR.

Teaching people how to save a life requires a relatively small investment in time and resources. The return on that investment, however, could be a life that might otherwise have been lost.