Malta is one of the few countries that are truly bilingual. Maltese and English are spoken and understood by most of the population, even if the level of linguistic competence varies greatly. But the language question keeps cropping up. Which of our two official languages should prevail in teaching?

The first major U-turn of this Administration can be attributed to the Minister of Education who, when in Opposition, stoked controversy by asking his predecessor if English should be made the language of instruction in schools.

Now, Evarist Bartolo is not so sure about the prevalence of English as the language of instruction. In a long-winded reply to a question from this newspaper, he indicated that “at this stage” no changes in the language of instruction in schools would be made. English would remain “the second language in which linguistic fluency and competence is expected”.

So many educators, business people and investment promoters are asking why Mr Bartolo’s pragmatic proposals in Opposition are being jettisoned at a time when educational achievement levels are the most disappointing in Europe and when real investment in the economy is sluggish.

Malta has often promoted itself as an ideal destination for direct foreign investment because of the use of the English language in business.

As Mr Bartolo said when in Opposition, “other countries like Singapore have taken the decision to adopt English as the language of instruction and it has helped them enormously with moving ahead in terms of economic development without destroying their cultural identify”. So why are we abandoning this pragmatic approach? Some smell political opportunism in this change of heart.

We need to learn from the mistakes of others. The Philippines used to attract substantial US investment because the Filipinos used to be very proficient in the use of the English language. Over the past few decades, they lost most of this investment as the teaching of English deteriorated to the extent that even call centres found it difficult to recruit staff that had a good command of English.

India was more pragmatic. Besides traditionally promoting high standards in the teaching of English, they send language teachers to Britain and Ireland to learn the various accents that the English and Irish use. They did this to ensure that call centres that operate from India can give an effective service to English-speaking residents in England and Ireland.

This linguistic pragmatism has nothing to do with the cultural issues often raised by defenders of the Maltese language. Maltese will forever be our national language. It is also one of our two official languages. Maltese society generally treasures our language and cultural initiatives promote the use of the Maltese language as much as they promote the use of English.

But to be able to survive and prosper in the harsh world of economic realities, we need to promote the use of English in business at all levels. Using English as a means of instruction in schools, the University and vocational colleges is a good start.

Concurrently, we need to make sure that our students can also speak and write good Maltese. The fact that 26 per cent of students fail Maltese at Matsec level shows how much more needs to be done to improve the standard of language teaching in our education system.

What the country needs is a pragmatic language policy that should start with improving the level of competence of teachers of both Maltese and English.