Updated with MUT's reaction

Educators at church schools are to receive new laptops, following an agreement signed between Malta and the Vatican. 

The new agreement, which is a spin-off of one signed between the Vatican and Malta in the 1990s, was announced by Foreign Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela during a press conference on Friday.

Mr Abela said the €2.1 million agreement would see all teachers, learning support assistants and kindergarten assistants in Malta’s church-run schools receive laptops to help improve the service offered to students. 

Educators in all state schools were given new laptops following a €15 million investment announced during the previous administration.  

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said the government was well aware of the service provided by church–run educational facilities and wished to help support its work in educating thousands of Maltese youths.  

Apostolic Nuncio Alessandro D’Errico said the agreement sent a message about the type of relationship the Vatican and Malta had.  

Flanking Mgr D’Errico, Archbishop Charles Scicluna also made a brief statement, thanking the government for the support it had shown throughout the years for the educational services provided by the church. 

MUT welcomes move

The Malta Union of Teachers welcomed the agreement while expressing its appreciation for the efforts made by both parties to bring educators in church schools at par with their colleagues in State schools in terms of digital resources.

The provision of laptops to all educators in church schools had been agreed upon in the Collective Agreement between the MUT and the church authorities, the union said in a statement.

It pointed out that even though individual schools had already made arrangements to provide laptops, this agreement would implement in full the agreement.

 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.