Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/252940
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 2 FEBRUARY 2014 Opinion 20 W e consider our efforts to improve levels of literacy to be an important factor in ensuring that everybody feels included in Maltese society. Over a hundred policy measures are being proposed by the National Literacy Strategy for All in Malta so that we continue to ensure that all our children, youths and adults have the opportunity to acquire the competencies required for them to lead fulfilling lives. Literacy and the acquisition of literacy are complex issues which require a strong commitment from parents, caregivers, highly dedicated professionals and society at large. Our Strategy adopts a lifelong perspective, with a clear priority on the first and early years. It is at this stage that the foundations of literacy which will inf luence highly their later development are laid down for each child. The Strategy also promotes life-long and intergenerational dimensions by supporting the crucial roles of the family and the community in supporting the literacy development of each child. Literacy is an important element in the field of social inclusion. We have pledged to promote literacy and the policy measures which are to be implemented will ensure that everybody in Malta has the opportunity to obtain the skills required for them to participate fully in society. We aim to create a literate community which provides opportunities for learners to make sense of their experiences and to make connections with their histories, cultures and communities. We aim to increase access to books and the language arts to strengthen participatory democracy. A policy of bilingualism with bi-literacy in Maltese and English will seek to consolidate and integrate better existing initiatives and programmes in this field to ensure increased effectiveness and impact. Increased language learning methods such as Language Exposure, Content and Language Integrated Learning and Language Tandems will be adopted. We believe in balanced Literacy Teaching where the technical aspects of reading and writing are taught in the context of making meaning through text and the integration of both oral skills as well as skills in reading and writing. Through these initiatives there will be increased opportunities for Reading Time in Maltese and English throughout the curriculum, within the frame of reference of the National Curriculum Framework. Educators at all levels in literacy learning and teaching will be given the proper development opportunities and to keep abreast of new technologies in the teaching and learning of literacy. We will conduct several research studies in Malta and Gozo that will provide a better F unny how certain memories trigger themselves off every now and again. After a week of astounding U-turns and 'gas down gol-hajt'-type traffic pile-ups, I was vaguely reminded of how a certain somebody once rubbished the entire concept of sites like Facebook as 'ephemeral' and 'inconsequential' little phases that one eventually outgrows. Indeed one might eventually outgrow such websites – it seems to be in the nature of these things to be forever superseded by newer and more sophisticated versions… and in my case, this always seems to happen when I've only just worked out how to actually use the damn thing. But for the present it is on Facebook that most of our recent political suicides have taken place; and it is Facebook status updates by impulsive politicians that now make instant headline 'news'. And oh look: the same ephemeral and inconsequential website has virtually demolished two political careers in the last two weeks alone. (Though of course we shall have to wait and see: the way political fortunes keep turning around in this country – and at such speed, too – both those careers might come bouncing back with a vengeance, you never know.) But at present, they are both in the doldrums, and apart from reconfirming the perils of a Facebook account for the politically-minded and large- mouthed amongst us, what makes these two analogous cases particularly interesting is that they mirror each other from across the political divide. It started with Marlene Farrugia, the Labour MP who last week candidly stated what the rest of us could easily have confirmed just by looking in the same general direction. Government had screwed up badly by unleashing a patently f lawed and dangerously vulnerable citizenship-by- investment programme, which was so poorly planned and clumsily executed that it had to be amended no fewer than three times (by which point it had inf licted untold damage to our international reputation). The second case concerned Kevin Plumpton, one of the younger PN MEP candidates who made a name for himself by protesting against the same citizenship scheme only two weeks ago… but who last Thursday called for his party to withdraw its judicial protest against the scheme, because (with only a minor and barely perceptible little tweak) it was now "in the national interest" to implement it. Both got clobbered for their pains: Farrugia by the party faithful, who almost literally showed her both the door and the boot they would use to kick her out of it (she is in fact retiring from politics, though she denies it has anything to with this event). Plumpton, on the other hand, got clobbered by his own party: which has now precluded him from its media events, though he is still permitted to represent the PN at the MEP elections next June. Which is basically another way of saying: "we still want this guy to be our candidate; we just don't want any of you to vote for him, that's all". Hm. OK, I admit there are significant differences between the two cases. I am unaware of any dramatic turn-around in Farrugia's position regarding the IIP scheme itself; while Plumpton's triple backward somersault into an empty pool (ouch!) was pretty clear for all to see. But in one respect they are identical. Both are cases in which party representatives have been chided or abused for being RIGHT, while their party was wrong. In Farrugia's case, vindication came swiftly. Within days of her outburst, government announced a revised scheme which now met with the Commission's approval. And my, what a surprise: it was basically a straight enactment of Farrugia's own earlier suggestion to include a basic residence condition (which suddenly makes everything hunky dory… though I for one fail to see exactly why). But while Marlene Farrugia has essentially been proved right, she still bears the stigma of one who has 'spoken against her party', and has even been compared to former PN maverick Franco Debono. The irony almost takes one's breath away… these are, after all, the same hard-boiled Labour supporters who only two years ago had championed Franco Debono as though he had fallen from the heavens to deliver them Raphael Vassallo When it's wrong to be right Labour supporters do not care about how badly a Labour government bruises itself as it clumsily plods along; they only care that it is left to plod along without facing any criticism of any kind whatsoever Evarist Bartolo Safeguarding a national asset – bilingualism Literacy is an important element in the field of social inclusion Marlene Farrugia