|
Well done for the article regarding the 18 percent VAT on summer schools.
There are many, many parents who make many financial sacrifices to enroll and send their children to summer schools, and for various reasons.
Some truly believe in the educational value that their kids will be receiving at these centres; others believe in summer schools as the only way of keeping their children busy and away from the dangers emanating from sheer laziness; yet others go to work and spend long hours away from home and summer schools serve as a means to have their children cared for.
There are various summer schools in Malta and Gozo, and this year, I am told, the number of young people being enrolled is very much lower than the level of the past years, obviously because of the VAT hike.
I strongly disagree with anybody claiming that summer schools are not educational. From what I read in your write-up, it appears that the minister involved is simply making a distinction between what is really educational and what strictly-speaking, on black and white falls under the Education Act.
In other words, the Minister concerned has no other way of getting out of this actual contradictory state of affairs – and do you blame him?
We simply must get as much money into the nation’s coffers as possible and why shouldn’t people pay tax to the government while dishing out precious money in order to send their kids to a summer school?
Of course, I am being sarcastic. The truth is that this problem of summer schools is only part of the jigsaw puzzle that the country is going through. We talk a lot, and we mean nothing or next to nothing. As long as it makes good news headlines.
If we are really committed towards education in general, and if we truly believe that upholding the law does not mean finding ways to bring in more money by ever fleecing the lower and medium wage earner, then, we have to do away with any taxes on educational events, institutions and supplies. Hence, do away with any taxes on schools and their activities, whether ancillary or direct, computers and computer equipment, paper and books, tuition, travelling abroad for educational purposes, etc.
The problem is: how do we make the country afford to do such a thing? And who will be courageous enough to see it through?
Which reminds me – there’s an educational-related Union in the country! Quit slumbering, MUT!
Franco Farrugia
Guardamangia
|
