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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 23 FEBRUARY 2014 11 Cabinet papers was due from a source abroad. But writers and painters were exempted from these restrictions. Monies for hoteliers A memo issued in July 1969 reveals the extent to which government was assisting hoteliers. The govern- ment was faced with a request for a £400,000 grant for the development of a 690-room hotel in Zebbug, Gozo. The request was made by the Pisani brothers, who promised to spend £1.4 million on the new hotel, which would have created 400 new jobs. But the memo points out that the Pisanis had already been granted £173,333 for the development of the 320-bed Corinthia Palace in Attard. They were also granted income tax relief for ten years and exemption from customs duty on construction material used in building the hotel. The Malta Development Corpora- tion had instructed the government that no additional financial assist- ance could be given to any applicant who had already received assist- ance, unless Cabinet approved this. In this way the picturesque Xwieni bay was spared from hotel develop- ment. Secondary schools for all Providing access to secondary education for all was seen as a vi- tal step to ensure that the country finds the manpower needed by its new economy. Education Minister Paolo Borg Olivier insisted that this was a vital step to be taken at the be- ginning of Malta's new five-year de- velopment plan. But apart from its utilitarian function, the education reform proposed in a memo issued in April 1969 also had a humanis- tic element: that of alleviating exam pressures on students. The minister proposed a revision of the method of selecting students for admission in secondary schools. Instead of an exam, "cumulative record cards and new attainment and intelligence tests" should sup- plement and eventually replace the admission exam. This change in as- sessing children from one exam to assessment covering the whole time spent in primary education, coupled with the fact that secondary educa- tion was to become available for all, was seen as a way of transforming primary education. "No longer will the children and their parents be burdened with fear of an arbitrary exam… No longer will teachers feel duty bound to cram their children for this exami- nation, no longer there will be an unnatural concentration on the two examinable subjects (English and Maths) at the exclusion of other valuable subjects like Nature Study, Arts and Crafts and Physical Educa- tion… no longer there will be dreary repetition which children undergo in order to sit the same exam again and again." The reform foresaw aspects of both the botched set-up of compre- hensives for mixed ability classes in the 1970s and the setting up of educational colleges in the past dec- ade, which saw the abolition of the dreaded 11-plus exam. The humanistic aspirations of the reform were spelt out clearly in the memorandum which proclaimed that "once the awful bogey of fierce competitive selection for entry to secondary schools is banished, our primary schools will become much happier and much more spontane- ous and efficient places." Still, the reform was still a far cry from comprehensive in the rest of continental Europe where stu- dents of all abilities went to the same schools. In fact the reform envisioned three types of secondary schools; Grammar schools, techni- cal schools and new "secondary gen- eral" schools. These schools were collectively meant to provide the type of secondary school best suited to the "widely varying abilities and needs of children." The 3 types of secondary schools were meant to differ only in bias in the education offered and were not to be diametri- cally different from each other. "Each will offer the same basic sub- jects and each will strive at achiev- ing the same standards." Pupils were to be able to move from one kind of school to another according to the progress they made and the interests they developed. The Minister also made it clear that the provision of secondary edu- cation for all was not to be provided at the expense of private secondary schools. On a practical level, the re- form envisioned that the primary level would begin at age 5 and would last 6 years. The reform envisioned 12 new boy secondary schools and 14 new girls secondary schools. Metering the boreholes In February 1969 Guzi Spiteri, Minister for Trade, Industry and Agriculture, proposed the metering of all boreholes used by farmers, a step that has still to be fully imple- mented 40 years down the line. In fact the decision to meter boreholes was only taken in 2008 and the proc- ess has yet to be completed. "It is essential to tackle the prob- lem of measuring exactly the quan- tity of water extracted by farmers so as to provide a better picture of the situation", the Minister claimed. Ironically former Minister George Pullicino used the same expression 40 years later. At that time, water extraction by farmers was estimated to be 30% of the island's total consumption but this estimate was outdated. Therefore the government's aim was to obtain "accurate figures on the amount of private extraction" and be in a position to protect the aquifers from "over pumping" and "prevent damage which could take generations to remedy." The Min- ister remarked that "water is a pre- cious commodity" and "all efforts must be made to ensure the opti- mum utilization of natural under- ground resources." In view of this, the minister en- dorsed a report prepared by the United Nations Development Pro- gramme proposing the metering of private water extraction. The ex- pense of purchasing and installing the meters for 1100 private wells was estimated at £35,000. In the ab- sence of regulation, the number of private wells swelled to 8000 in the subsequent years. In the 1960s Malta was more de- pendent on ground water than it is today. In September 1966 the same Min- ister warned that experts had come to the conclusion that Malta was not in a position to increase the ex- traction of ground water. A cabinet memo reveals that due to the increase in demand for water due to the growth of tourism, the authorities had to "resort to over extraction of the aquifers to meet demand." But the same Minister was aware that this could result in "the pro- gressive salinification of water." The only way out for the govern- ment was to commission a distil- lation plant to convert seawater in to fresh water. Distillation which involved boiling the water and then condensing its steam was super- seded by the more efficient reverse osmosis technology in the 1980s on which Malta depends for more than half of its drinking water. But back in 1966, 9 million gal- lons extracted from the aquifer and a further 1 million gallons stored in reservoirs provided for the peak summer demand of 10 million gal- lons. Cutting the apron strings In contrast to his own government's policies, which actively promoted property development, Borg Olivier became increasingly aware of the perils of an economic model based on land speculation Borg Olivier admitted that his government had gone on "bended knees" to secure foreign capital, with the industries given free services, sometimes at a great cost, as in the case of Comino