Seminar on Comenius Projects for Maltese Schools

Minister of Education and National Culture, Mr Evarist Bartolo, this morning opened a seminar on "The Comenius Projects for Maltese Schools" held at the University Residence in Lija.

In his welcome speech Minister Bartolo mentioned the fact that some Primary Schools had already taken the initiative and started exchange visits with foreign schools. By doing so they find that they have common problems with these schools and together they can find common solutions. These exchanges serve to enrich their skills in learning to deal with problems and to find a solution within their own reality.

It is important to keep this international dimension in mind for the 21^st century as national benchmarks will no longer suffice with the globalisation of the economy and society.

The Minister spoke on the setting up of a project (Comenius Inservice Primary Schools Science Project) for Primary School teachers in science at the University, using distance learning technology.

This certification course will be teacher-friendly to promote science education in primary schools.

The literacy project started this year will go on over the coming years to include numeracy and science.

Minister Bartolo thanked the British Council for making this initiative possible.

Two local schools, Lorenzo Gafa' Boys Secondary School in Vittoriosa and St Therese Girls' Junior Lyceum at Mriehel, will be participating in a quality programme sponsored by the E.U. called "Evaluating Quality in School Education".

This European pilot project aims at finding answers to three simple questions:

i) How good is your school ?

ii) How can we find out ?

iii) What can we do with the answers we get ?

One hundred schools in 17 European countries will participate in this programme; the number of schools in each country selected is roughly proportionate to country size.