A think tank meant to make proposals on the future of education in the country is being seen as a flop by teachers’ unions.

The think tank, set up last May by then education minister Owen Bonnici, is chaired by Edward de Bono of lateral thinking fame and among its members are high-profile figures like architect Richard England, Chamber of Commerce president David Xuereb and education permanent secretary Frank Fabri.

It was to take an opportunity from the COVID pandemic to envision the future of education and was instructed to apply “blue sky thinking”, Bonnici had said at the time.

However, the think tank did not meet the September 14 deadline that he set to issue a report and since May has met just four times, last December.

The opposition flagged the issue in parliament last week and then accused the current minister, Justyne Caruana, of lying when she said there was no scheduled date for the report to be produced.

Teachers’ unions are utterly unimpressed by the think tank. 

“The ministry of education had contacted us when it was originally set up but we didn’t hear from them for a number of months, up until December of last year when suddenly we had four meetings within two weeks,” Malta Union of Teachers president Marco Bonnici told Times of Malta.

The MUT had only been included in the committee’s discussions after the union complained of being left out.

“As a union, we can say that we are not impressed with the think tank because we got the impression it was all done in a hurry,” Bonnici said.

“The ministry did not seem to be giving it much importance throughout the meetings held in December. Given that the report does not seem like it will determine much at all, as a union we didn’t give it much importance either.”

The Union of Professional Educators said they were never involved in the think tank and that “there was a lack of information on what it was supposed to achieve”.

Both unions acknowledged that the transition of power between Bonnici and Caruana may have played a role in the lack of consistency shown by the think tank.

“Based on the limited information we do have, it seems there was no logic to it,” UPE executive head Graham Sansone said.

“The report should have been issued before schools reopened, to begin with. The think tank was supposed to come up with a plan for our education system by then.”

Its lack of results meant that the news conference announcing its creation was simply “a cosmetic PR stunt”.

“I believe that the think tank was set up the create the illusion of a proactive approach without any intent of making a difference for future strategies,” Sansone added.

Questions sent to the education minister, the permanent secretary and various think tank members remained unanswered.