Children will return to school even if the COVID-19 situation in Malta is far worse than it was in March when schools were closed. Irrespective of precautionary guidelines, the education minister has been characteristically economical with details and roped in educators and unions only when and if deemed fit.
Understandably, parents and educators are waiting with trepidation to see what fresh challenges they will need to tackle, including health issues.
Most parents and teachers have had to deal with anxiety and helplessness these past months while children were having lessons from home.
Putting on a brave face and trying to disguise the layers of frustration and fatigue must have been quite a feat even for parents who are used to juggling schooling, a full-time job and running a household on their daily to-do list.
This is because, so far, most parents have yet to understand and properly measure what the educational, social, emotional and psychological aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has been on their children.
The lingering uncertainty is all the more understandable if during the past scholastic year their children were not able to follow, much less participate in online lessons regularly.
The situation is exacerbated for children who required learning support educators, speech therapists, occupational therapists, counsellors, psychologists and other professionals whose services were physically unavailable up to a few weeks ago.
Of special concern are definitely parents, particularly single parents, parents of children or young adults with special needs, parents who have lost their job and might need to change their home, parents undergoing separation, and those battling their own, possibly new mental health issues... the list is endless. Who will help these parents out?
A WHO study showed that Maltese children were among the most dissatisfied with their lives- Ivan Bartolo
It is common knowledge that the Labour government has been less than sensitive to these parents and their children’s needs, particularly from a mental health aspect. Are mental health services for children adequate?
How accessible and ideal is it that these services are housed at St Luke’s Hospital rather than Mater Dei Hospital? Are community services located in central parts of Malta or just in certain districts?
Is there a plan to improve such services? Have health professionals been able to cope with the rising demand in mental health services?
Has the Labour government invested in training these professionals? Is there a reasonable budget being spent and is there a good return on investment?
We cannot ignore the fact that two studies have given us insights into mental health issues that Maltese children and young adults are facing or will face.
The ‘9th Good Childhood Annual Report 2020’, which examined international data from a 2018 survey by the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) in relation to well-being, ranked 69 per cent of our Maltese 15-year-olds as the second worst among 23 European countries in life satisfaction and as having the greatest fear of failure.
In a similar vein, the ‘Health Behaviour in School-aged Children’ study carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) also showed Maltese children were among the most dissatisfied with their lives. Policies will never materialise and translate into concrete change that benefit different groups within our community without proper consultations and without the involvement and criticism of important stakeholders.
By now, all of us know that ‘Gvern li Jisma’ (‘A government that listens’) was basically a slogan that never made its way outside the marketing team’s door into real life situations, that is, unless, you were a donor or a businessman, of course.
This government has to stop failing those presently requiring mental healthcare but also those that might require such care. The care has to be easily available and accessible, tailor-made to each individual, be they children, adolescents, adults, caregivers or educators.
That is the only way that the economic results for which every government has striven can be translated into good health for the population at large.
Ivan Bartolo is Nationalist Party spokesperson on social exclusion.