The eminent professor Ronald Sultana, in his article ‘Educational apartheid in Malta’ (July 9), refers to the claim made by the European Commission, as reported in Times of Malta of July 5, that “private school students are two years ahead than students attending public ones”.

Rightly so, he highlights that it is outrageous that, on average, students in state schools lag behind those in the non-state sector by two years in educational achievements.

What do I understand by ‘apartheid’? Apartheid is about separation, division, inequality and injustice. In my opinion,  any individual, group or system that promotes ‘apartness’ or a ‘negative gap’ is guilty of apartheid, whether this is done intentionally or not.

So why do I agree with Sultana about ‘apartheid in education’? I consider a ‘quality education’ to be one that provides access to educational opportunities that allow individuals to develop and learn significantly above and beyond their ‘normal’ rate of development. Whether their development is typical or atypical.

I consider a quality education as supporting independence and self-regulation from the very young to the very old. I consider a quality education as fostering quality environments that infuse a love for learning in everybody.

Sultana affirms that access to a quality education is a fundamental right. He recognises the problematic nature of averages and that they can be “unnecessarily disheartening”. He argues and makes us reflect intelligently that if “this discrepancy were to be in the health sector, with those making use of private services having a two-year lead in life chances on those that rely on state services, the riot police would have to be called in!”

The riot police will not be called in because I suspect that many Maltese citizens do not realise how they are being robbed of their basic human right to quality education and access to the best treatment when chronically ill.

In this country, we do not know if there really exists a gap in overall survival between patients in private care and patients in state care.

This is because we love to erect an array of seemingly innovative programmes, be they educational or healthcare focused, but we are reluctant to monitor the impact and quality of the programmes we erect and pour money into and to focus on truly improving quality and access for the long run.

We love to tell, to build but we fail to hold ourselves accountable and monitor, especially qualitatively and quantitatively in the right measure, the consequences of our actions.

We choose not to monitor the positive impact, the toll or the inconsequential effects that this has on children and other people not at mere singular points in time but over life trajectories and lifetimes.

Some of you might describe me as biased, in the turn that I am now assigning to this opinion piece. I assure you that it is plausible that you are right. But, please, read, listen and try to understand.

Deep down in your heart of hearts do you not think that there definitely exists a gap in access to life-saving and life-extending treatment? In my case, access to Daratumumab, given that, besides being an educator, I am also a myeloma survivor.

A few of you might remember my plea to include Daratumumab as part of the government formulary for free medicinals. In spite of my many efforts and in spite of my living in the hope that this government will fulfil its electoral promise to provide the best in cancer treatment, I am still being funded by the Malta Community Chest Fund (MCCF).

Even though I have been critical of MCCF because I think that I have a right to live rather than ask for charity to live, I remain grateful for MCCF.

To return to the gap in quality between the private and the public sector, in this case it is the state sector turned ‘semi-private’ that is funding me.

I feel the lines between the private and the state sector have now become blurred in connection to funding for critical medical treatment.

Rather bleakly, I feel that this is a weak, unkind strategy that is spearheaded by the very attractive current prime minister and his fans. I might be wrong, and I apologise in advance should the leader, Robert Abela and the rest of his crew feel offended. Nonetheless, this is the way I feel. I let readers be the judge.

Do you not think that there definitely exists a gap in access to life-saving and life-extending treatment?- Lara Said

So what is the whole point of my apartheid in access to education and cancer treatment story? I think that we never seem to learn.

We think that we want to voice the right to life of the unborn child but then we fail to provide access to quality life-long opportunities to live well, to learn well, happily and healthily for all of our born children.

We think that we are being charitable by funding cancer treatment through donations but then we are likely to, at times, fail to fund in a timely fashion access to life-extending treatment.

I still have to apply for ‘my Daratumumab’. I still need to beg for money given that I am still ‘viable’. Outrageous is too mild a word, apartheid is better, genocide is beginning to look more like it.

It looks to me that our state is increasingly becoming responsible for the ‘killing’ of an ever-increasing number of people.

What is worse is that the Maltese state is killing us Maltese citizens. Killing us softly, softly through the over-urbanisation of this island. Killing us through deliberate overbuilding that now extends beyond the life-sustaining, sustainable capacity of our Maltese and Gozitan concrete rocks.

Killing us through intentional overbuilding, which, I fear, is channelling limited and precious financial and human resources inequitably towards roads instead of education and healthcare.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions. The good intentions of this state go under the guise of economic success.

The hell that we are in, for the fortunate who realise this, is that the state does not really care about us and future generations. The state has become a conscientious AI machine that has managed to programme itself in an increasingly self-perpetuating fashion for us to exist apart, because it is devoid of consciousness, instead of allowing us a good shot at living well and for the longer stretch together.

Lara Said, Ph.D (UCL, Institute of Education), is a senior lecturer, Department of Early Childhood & Primary Education, University of Malta.