The leader of Alleanza Bidla has joined forces with a concerned couple calling for the immediate withdrawal of a primary school workbook they claim is being used as a tool for “gender indoctrination”.

Ivan Grech Mintoff, in his capacity as “a citizen interested in all that takes place in the country”, together with Melvin and Jennifer Farrugia, have filed a judicial protest in the First Hall, Civil Court against the Minister for Education and Employment, his permanent secretary, the director general in the department of curriculum, lifelong learning and employability and the directorate for learning and assessment programmes.

They voiced “serious concern” over the workbook used in personal, social and career development classes for Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils.

The workbook, which the children are not allowed to take home, though purportedly intended to educate them about “facts of life” linked to their physical, psychological and sexual development, made “subtle” and “direct” references to gender orientation issues that were likely to bring “confusion” in such young minds, the couple and Mr Grech Mintoff argued.

Whoever designed the schoolbook demonstrated “lack of sensitivity” towards children of such tender age. The youngsters were not mature enough to fully grasp the implications such teachings could have upon their lives, the protest noted.

Explaining “wet dreams” to 10-year olds and defining sexual orientation as “attraction to persons of the same or opposite sex” were aspects of the workbook that gave rise to serious concern, they continued, stressing that the matter was of direct interest to all parents concerned about the well-being of their children.

The judicial protest also questioned the raison d’etre behind a letter sent by the education authorities to heads of primary State schools in April 2018 who were “kindly asked to forward these workbooks directly to the peripatetic teachers of PSCD and not to class teachers due to the sensitive nature of the topics”.

Even more worrying, they went on, was the fact that the workbooks were to be used solely in class, prompting them to question why the publication “was being kept away from parents who had a right to know what their children were being taught at school”.

Such attitude ran counter to “the right of every parent of a minor to give his decision with regard to any matter concerning the education which the minor is to receive”, as acknowledged by article 6 of the Education Act, which echoed the EU Convention on Fundamental Human Rights and five international treaties to which Malta was a signatory, the couple and Mr Grech Mintoff remarked in their judicial protest.

Reference was also made to a pronouncement by the European Court of Human Rights in a case against Denmark declaring that “The State is forbidden to pursue an aim of indoctrination that might be considered as not respecting parents’ religious and philosophical convictions. That is the limit that must not be exceeded.”

In the circumstances, they called upon the authorities to immediately withdraw the workbook and make adequate changes. Lawyer Michael Tanti-Dougall signed the judicial protest.