State sponsored adult literacy programmes in Malta: A critical review

Abstract ¹

This paper focuses on state sponsored adult literacy programmes in Malta. Such a focus is appropriate for two reasons. In the first place, state sponsored adult literacy education has a long history in Malta and, therefore, is vast enough as an area of enquiry to warrant a study on its own. Secondly, this is the area wherein I have carried out a substantial part of my adult education work within the Education Department. This area of adult education is examined in relation to a variety of issues. One of these, which is of central importance in the history of education in Malta, is the Language Question. This question remains a recurring one in this microstate in which the Maltese language is seen as the hallmark of a small population's identity.² At the same time, this is a country which requires a language of international currency for a variety of reasons, not least of which being the consolidation of its status as rentier state.³ Reference in this paper will be made to other issues related to the characteristics of a small nation state, as well as to such other pertinent issues as emigration, colonialism, bureaucratic centralisation and female participation.

Notes

1. I should like to express my gratitude to my friend, Carmel Borg, for commenting on an earlier draft of the paper. I should equally like to thank another friend, Godfrey Baldacchino, for engaging with me in discussions on some of the issues on microstates raised in this paper. The paper was originally published in Maurice Taylor & Rene Bedard (eds) Proceedings of the 11th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (May, 1992) College of Education, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. It is now being published with some important modifications.