Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/463339
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2015 24 Letters Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. The latest industrial action called by the General Workers' Union, later withdrawn following agreement with the manage- ment, has placed Malta Shipyards yet again under the spotlight. The point at issue goes far beyond the legal correctness or otherwise of the industrial action called. This, no doubt, is a legal matter best argued among indus- trial lawyers. The burning point at issue, as far as public opinion and the employees involved are concerned, is the sustain- ability of the project and the livelihood of the one thousand three hundred workers at the yard. Disapproval also stems from industrial action being called at a time when the company finances are in dire straits and the government keeps subsidis- ing the project. In Dom Mintoff 's heyday a strategic de- cision was taken to invest and reinvest in the shipyards. There was the belief, inbred in Mintoffian ideology, that by so doing not only would jobs be guaranteed but the yards would be sustainable. After all Malta's strategic position and the excellent foreign contacts which the Labour govern- ment had would guarantee the work! The Soviet container ships orders being a case in point. As a result of this strategic decision millions of tax payer's money was thrown at the yards. Any suggestions at the time that good money was being thrown down a bottomless well were derided and op- ponents were considered enemies of the people. The government of the day unashamedly hailed these workers as the aristocracy of the working class. The change in government after 1987, brought in the Fenech Adami government determined to buy industrial peace, at any cost, at the potentially explosive docks. All its decisions regarding the yards were blinded by this strategic decision. Accordingly in spite of the dire financial situation, more public money was dis- bursed while in all fairness attempts were made together with the unions to suc- cessfully reduce the work force. This too proved insufficient. On the election of the Labour government in 1996, the incom- ing Prime Minister Alfred Sant appeared to take the financial bull by the horns by removing the workers from on the manag- ing board which was placed firmly in the hands of the government managerial orientated appointees. More attention was to be given to marketing and winning of orders and a tighter grip of the financial situation was established. In spite of all the good will, the sustainability of the project remained dubious with losses mounting. Little or no recognition for this effort was given to the short-lived government. Fenech Adami's government in 1998 yet again strategically decided to buy industrial peace by writing off 300 million in taxpayer's money and agreeing this very year to subsidise the yards to the tune of eight million Liri. Public opinion is baf- f led. It was all too often assured that the fundamentals of the shipyards are finally in order. It is all the more disappointed when it realises what a return would have been given to the country if such subsidies were poured into tourism. This agreement was to be the final government help which would place the yards on an even keel. Regrettably, it was not to be and this industrial action should kick-start gov- ernment to reassessing the position and the survival chances of the project. This should be analysed with cold financial log- ic. Public opinion is clearly against more of its taxes being lost on the project. It has lost faith that the haemorrhage can ever be stopped. It is however also sensitive to the employee's plight and accordingly cries out for an equitable solution to be ironed out. An agreement must be worked out whereby the employees, many of whom are highly skilled are slowly found employ- ment in the private sector. Public opinion does not favour the déjà vu seconding of these employees to other government agencies or departments, as this will have no healing effect on government finances. The way forward is to incentivise the private sector to take on this highly skilled work force. This calls for a creative mind and leader- ship. Ignoring this reality will only mean a further drain on the public purse. This is totally unacceptable especially as govern- ment is currently asking the citizen to make sacrifices in order to overcome a dif- ficult situation. Minister Austin Gatt was right to threaten closure unless industrial action was stopped. Indeed this had the desired effect. It is now time however for the Gonzi government to scale down the yard over a period of time, in consultation with the unions and strictly simultane- ously find alternative employment for the employees in the private sector. Needless to say the union will oppose, the government will not want to rock the boat, the situation will worsen and more taxpayers' money will be drained in the project. Let the union appreciate fully that public opinion is not on its side. Taxpayers cry out enough is enough. The proven un-sustainability of the project leaves government and the unions with little choice. There is need for a dose of real politik. The haemorrhage at the Shipyards Editorial • February 6 2005 Missing the wood for the trees I am not easily put off by figures and statistics but I must admit to having had some difficulty mak- ing my way about James Debono's 'Little pluralism in languages' in MaltaToday of 8 February 2015. More importantly, it is my belief that by focusing on the way the modern language cake is divided between the different options on offer in our schools, as Debono does, we risk losing sight of some- thing far, far more important, namely, the rapidly diminishing size of that cake. Maltese society is indeed well on its way to following the UK's lead in this and becoming functionally 'illiterate' as regards foreign language and culture skills and having to rely increas- ingly on importing this knowhow, but before I look into this matter I would like first of all to put forward what I consider to be a much simpler way of gauging how foreign language choices are evolving in Malta by reproducing the figures contained in Euro- stat's 25 September, 2014 news release, on the occasion of the Eu- ropean Day of Languages, which focused on the main foreign languages taught in European schools – English, French, Ger- man and Spanish. Setting aside English, which in principle is studied by all Maltese students, the percentages of lower secondary school students study- ing French, German and Spanish in Malta in 2005, according to Eurostat, were 42.4%, 8.4% and 2.4% respectively. In 2012 the cor- responding figures were 35.0%, 7.7% and 7.4%. Where is Italian in all this, you may well ask? Italian is not often to be encountered on offer in European schools but our Italian cousins still occupy a special place in Maltese hearts and minds despite the disappearance of Italian TV from our radar. Sta- tistics for SEC 2014 registrations and language take-ups in schools in October 2014 would seem to indicate that about half of those who sign up for foreign languages in schools in Malta choose Ital- ian, just about the same as in 2006. I come now to what I consider to be by far the most impor- tant issue as regards languages, namely, that the number of our young people studying a foreign language is diminishing at an astonishing rate both in absolute terms and, even more worryingly, in relative terms compared to other countries. Indeed, despite declarations by the government and business interests that languages are vital for our open, services-based economy, we are failing to equip our up-and-coming generations with the language skills required to communicate with the rest of the world. As a matter of fact we seem to have fallen into the trap of thinking that we can get by with our little bit of English of sorts, not unlike what has hap- pened in the UK. I do not want to bother readers with too many wearisome statis- tics to show that the decline in the absolute numbers of students sitting for SEC exams in modern languages considerably exceeds the reduction due to demographic reasons, namely fewer children in schools, and it will suffice to say that while the number of students sitting for the SEC in English – in theory obligatory for all and as a consequence useful as a proxy of the demographic decline – has gone down 14% over the decade from 2004 to 2013, the numbers sitting for French and Italian have both gone down by more than double this rate, namely 38% and 30% respectively. Of much greater concern in my opinion, is our relative decline compared to other European countries. In neighbouring Italy, just to cite one example, 100% of pupils at lower secondary level now study English, the same as Malta, but the proportions of Italian pupils studying French, German and Spanish have gone up from 46.3%, 4.9% and 3.6% respec- tively in 2005, to 69.9%, 8.5% and 20.5% respectively in 2012. All three languages have in fact seen a substantial increase in the num- bers of pupils studying them in Italy, with the proportion taking up Spanish having increased by a spectacular 569% in a period of seven years. This contrasts mark- edly with the figures I gave above for Malta, which show a marked decrease for some languages. In recognition of this grave situation confronting Malta, the Faculty of Arts recently appointed a Languages Sub-Committee to look into this matter but even though it is too early to tell what its findings will be, it already seems clear that although the uni- versity itself can do more to en- courage language take-up among its students the phenomenon will need to be tackled much earlier, in secondary and even primary schools. Luckily, moves are afoot at the Ministry of Education to try and address this new 'language question', but we shall have to wait to see how effective these new initiatives will be. Interestingly, we may not even need to look beyond our shores for examples of good practice in this regard. Figures for the num- bers of pupils taking up modern languages in the first year of their secondary schooling in October 2014 compared to October 2013 indicate that while the take-up of modern languages in State schools continued to slip, the number taking up languages in Church schools increased by 11.1%. Indeed, in 2014 more pupils took up a language in Form 1 in Church schools than was the case for State schools. Are Church schools doing something which State schools are not doing or was this some chance occurrence? If it is not a one-off and Church schools are in fact doing better at encouraging pupils to study lan- guages then State schools could perhaps take a leaf or two out of the Church 's hymnbook. Prof. Carmel Vassallo Chairman Languages Sub-Committee Faculty of Arts University of Malta