Louis Galea Minister of Education, Youth and Employment Dr Galea was born in 1948. He has been Minister for Social Policy 1987-1992, Minister for Home Affairs and Social Development 1992-1996 (both terms included the Health portfolio), and Minister of Education 1998 to date. During these periods he introduced a number of key national reforms in the areas of employment, social welfare, correctional facilities, mental health, drug abuse services, vocational education, and culture and heritage. He established national structures for the prevention of social exclusion such as the National Commission Persons with a Disability (1987); the Commission for the Advancement of Women (1988); the Employment and Training Corporation (1990); the Department for the Equal Status of Women (1991); the Agency Against Drug and Alcohol Abuse (1994); the Social Welfare Development Programme (1994); and the Foundation for Educational Services to combat school failure.

Quality Education for Young People: Challenges, Trends and Priorities: the situation in Malta.

Education in Malta is inspired by the document: Creating the Future Together, the National Minimum Curriculum, published in 1999 by the Ministry of Education. The ultimate aim of the National Minimum Curriculum is to develop an educational ethos that stimulates the development of students' potential without undermining the principles of solidarity and co-operation.

A fundamental principle of the National Minimum Curriculum is that of providing quality education to each and every learner. The National Minimum Curriculum recognises the right to quality education as the main aim of this process of curricular review. Grounded in the present, quality education has wider and future impact and is based on respect for all the other curricular principles.

Although the legal structures are intended to guarantee access to the educational system, the National Minimum Curriculum should provide the context wherein all children, without any exception, participate in the continuous enhancement of personal and collective knowledge and the development of those attitudes and skills which the community regards as basic and necessary for a person's holistic development.

This induced the Curriculum Department within the Education Division to produce a set of benchmarks, namely level descriptors to give general guidance for assessment purposes for both the Primary and Secondary levels (5-16).. Learners, parents and teachers will benefit from these descriptors since they will be able to gauge at what levels learners have reached on the basis of performance descriptors. During the inset courses that were held in July and that will be held in September the focus of these courses was on creating awareness of these level descriptors among the teaching cadre. The efforts of the Curriculum Department will continue so that all teachers will be reached by 2006.

Internal audit has been carried out annually for the past five years. Schools have been following to date Indicators as laid out mainly by the Scottish office, Education and Industry Department. The Department of Operations within the Education Division has now published Quality Indicators for local Schools (Knowing our Schools). This publication which is the result of research by Heads of School themselves is meant to express the needs of the local situation in the school Development Plan.

The Ministry of Education has also actively embarked on preparations leading to external school audit which has been lacking to-date.

The Ministry is also embarking on a pilot project concerning school net-working. These include a number of primary and secondary schools. This net-working is aimed at enhancing standards, with the sharing of good practices foremost on the agenda.

These initiatives are intended to enhance quality education. It is clear that there will be pitfalls and setbacks along the road however, these should not deter us from striving towards reaching our goals .