Education Ministry offers scholarships for Maltese living abroad

The Malta Indipendent online
16 March 2010

by Annaliza Borg


The Education Ministry yesterday proposed five scholarships per year for Maltese of the first, second and third generations living abroad and who have the necessary qualifications to read for a Bachelor of Education degree with a specialisation in Maltese.

Education Minister Dolores Cristina announced the scholarships yesterday during the second day of the Convention for Maltese living abroad. The Convention is being held at the Exchange Building in Valletta all week.

She explained the scholarships cover tuition fees as well as a stipend granted to Maltese citizens reading for the same degrees. Accommodation should not be a problem, she believed, as Maltese relatives will probably host students enthusiastically.

Minister Cristina said the government understood that Maltese living abroad often feel detached from their home land. She also applauded the Emigrants’ Commission’s initiative of setting up a Migration Museum.

She announced the Director for Social Services was in the concluding phases of signing a reciprocal agreement with New Zealand’s authorities on social security to protect Maltese people living there.

While acknowledging the work of Maltese language schools and non-governmental organisations, she listed proposals to help strengthen ties and particularly the dissemination of language.

For this reason, the government will be encouraging qualified Maltese people to teach the language in countries where Maltese people live and which have the necessary structures to support teaching.

Audio-visual productions on the Maltese language and its teaching will be produced and distributed to schools and Maltese organisations abroad with the help of the national council for Maltese language, the University of Malta and the Department for Curriculum Development within the Education Directorate. The Ministry promised it will be sending at least five publications a year.

It also proposed that the National Book Council helps mitigate expenses to send books abroad when a number of orders for the same publication are received.

She believed Maltese books of literature, cultural or folkloristic value should be recorded and sent abroad. Meanwhile, information technology could be put to better use for distance learning of Maltese language.

The history of Maltese migration as part of history classes will be considered in the revision of the national curriculum which is ongoing. The Minister also called for the University of Malta to consider the possibility of offering history of migration as a credit by the Faculty of Arts.

A number of other keynote speakers participated in the convention.

Mr Alfred Fenech spoke on maintaining Maltese culture and heritage in Australia through increased migration from Malta.

He explained the Maltese migrant community was rapidly ageing and “basically dying out”. The average age of Maltese community was 60 while the general Australian average age was 36. This was mainly because very few migrants had created a living in Australia since the seventies.

“We must ensure that the Maltese language and culture continue to be a thread in the fabric of the Australian society,” said Mr Frank Scicluna, from Adelaide, Australia.

In presenting the Federation of Maltese Language Schools’ wish list, Mr Scicluna spoke of several problems they were facing, including lack of Maltese language teachers, the high costs of operating language schools and the declining number of students.

He therefore called for assistance from Malta.

Prof. Joe Friggieri spoke of better collaboration and shared learning with the use of the internet. He believed school children could create links with other students belonging to the same age groups, with the help of teachers to develop joint computer projects in any subject. This kind of collaboration could be extended to include people from all walks of life and belonging to different parts of the community.

Mark Caruana spoke of Maltese heritage in Australia while Dr Joseph Bezzina discussed Gozo’s cultural and folkloristic heritage towards niche tourism among migrants.
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=103157