The yawning chasm between what we say and what we do and what we teach and what we practice is now vast and growing. We appear to have no qualms in pompously declaring something and then practising its complete opposite.
This is especially true as regards what we believe schools and education should teach - to respect for everyone regardless, value nature, promote discussion and debate, reject bullying and discrimination, and so on.
We talk of fostering curious and enquiring minds, of nurturing critical capacity and life skills for effective engagement with the world here in Malta and beyond. And then we act via the manipulation of educational agendas and key policies and positions to ensure that nothing of the sort happens.
This is especially true of political education, as broadly understood.
Despite the routine intensity and vitriol of Maltese politics, our society remains (by design and manipulation) to a significant degree ignorant politically. Political life as normally practised in much of Maltese life is viciously primitive with predictably negative results.
Regardless of political leaning, the last thing our elite desire is a politically educated population, one capable of engaging critically and constructively with the vary many problems the country faces. Instead political education and life are reduced to formulaic posturing e.g. ‘love’ of country and flag, respect for the (untaught) Constitution, voting (for ‘your’ party), obeying the law (selectively) etc.
When it is allowed (my experience that it is most often blocked), political education is about generating acquiescence and obedience to received and unquestioned political norms. Seldom is it about critically interrogating society, politics, religion, culture or identity.
Given the nature, scale, and impact of the core challenges facing the world and Malta from climate change to conflict and inequality, from casual to systemic racism and misogyny, human rights denial to increasingly ‘normalised’ criminality and corruption, real and effective political education has never been more urgently needed.
In this context, the call to make politics a school subject is to be welcomed, especially if it sparks genuine educational discussion and debate (and action) on the subject.
Without it, our people (especially our young) are forced to operate in the world without exercising the skills and insights that could help maximise control of their own destiny. Without it, many remain devoid of any real sense of their capacity and opportunity to effect change, something that has become a defining characteristic of the Maltese under this and previous regimes.
Political education would recognise and engage with increased globalisation in environmental, cultural, economic, and political life, with increasingly diverse populations, with dominant understandings of what constitutes, for example ‘development’, ‘national identity’ or ‘security’.
Democratic citizenship education would help promote the recognition of mutual interdependence in society and its associated responsibilities to self, others, and the planet. Civic awareness and engagement would assist individuals and communities take responsibility for what happens and not as is now the case seek to externalise blame.
Political education would assist each of us in better understanding and redefining our politics substantively.
It would also help promote deliberative argument and debate, an interest in a diversity of opinion, culture and reasoning, a disposition towards tolerance, inclusion and respect for oneself, for all others, and, vitally for nature. It would also encourage a willingness to interrogate and, where necessary challenge abusive authority, power and, crucially disempowerment across large segments of society.
One of the many results of Malta’s institutionalised corruption is the increasingly low level of civic engagement and participation, consequent social demoralisation, and a culture of political disengagement except at a banal and tribal level.
At another level, the teaching and practice of political education in schools and in society at large (for it should never be considered solely a ‘schools’ issue) would assist the realisation that learning and discussion alone without a considered action agenda will not lead to transformative change. It should help us challenge many misconceptions such as that which sees politics as inevitably ‘dirty’ or as an activity only for politicians.
Political education could help us revisit two key principles. One, that politics is far too important to be left to politicians or leaders alone and two, that each of us has the capacity (and the obligation) to practice our individual and collective agency.