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The Maltese education system had been improving since at least the 1850s when Can. Paolo Pullicino took over the directorship of Maltese schools. Directors who came after him continued to do their best to beef up and update curricula, methodologies and school environment. Though there were always other things to do, yet one can say that Maltese schooling was in safe hands with the various directors and education officials that ran the Elementary Schools Department and other educational sectors. This article will focus on school life and education from the outbreak of World War II up till Malta obtained its political independence from Great Britain in 1964. ; peer-reviewed

This book looks at food and foodways with special focus on Malta. It looks at the Roman, Arabic and Medieval periods in the life of the Maltese Islands. Furthermore it takes Mdina as its departing point as it was the main urban settlement; the other inhabited areas were no more than villages and hamlets. The only other two places that had some socio-political prominence and significance were the Borgo and the Rabat cittadella of Gozo. Yet Mdina remained the city of Malta and the place where the political, religious and social elites lived. It was thus the leader of an otherwise rural population. It was a forward looking and enterprising city when all the casals were conservative and circumscribed. It was from Mdina that the island of Malta was administered through the Universitas which set rules, regulations and directions. ; N/A

Before the British acquired Malta and added it to their growing world empire, the local population was generally illiterate. It had no stable schooling system and those who managed to get an education, did so because they could afford to pay for their instruction either in Malta or abroad. Along the rule of the Order of St John, there were very few schools, but had there been more this would have made little difference to the poor inhabitants who would still not afford an education. Under the British, things began to change, also prompted by what was happening in the sphere of education in Britain itself and on the European continent. Philosophers and politicians were pushing for the introduction of a stronger programme of schooling and education for the common people; as ignorant people are much less productive than those who have even an elementary standard of education. ; peer-reviewed

While it may sound quite bizarre by modern-day logic to visualise a Catholic monk dressed in full armour, wielding a sword or a mace, in the fray of battle, fighting ferociously to the end; this was no extraordinary occurrence in the life of medieval society. Indeed it was quite a common concept for persons of noble blood to create monastic orders whose raison d'etre was to pray, but no less, to fight, in defence of their religious convictions. ; peer-reviewed

Before Britain took over the Maltese Islands, the latter did not have any real school structure. Even with the arrival ofthe British in 1800, little changed for the first three decades. Malta had only some private schools. which were run by afewforeign and local teachers, and a number ofnormal schools run as semi-charitable institutions. Gozo fared even worse. The local Roman Catholic Church did not help much to promote education along this period and the colollial government did not show any particular verve towards the opening of schools for the populace. Things only began to change when (j Royal Commission visited Malta in 1836. ; peer-reviewed

Malta became a British colony in 1800 and its function was that of a fortress within an imperial network. This influenced all that happened in the colony along the nineteenth century. Not least affected was the sphere of education where a main feature of Anglicisation was the forceful attempt to change Malta's everyday school language from Italian to English. This was no easy task as the Maltese pro-Italian party, the Nationalists, made every effort to impede and overturn any such British attempt. To add to the tension, the British were religiously Protestant and this clashed with the sentiments of the predominantly Roman Catholic native population. Thus the vigilant Catholic Church viewed with suspicion all that was attempted in education by the colonial Government. There was a continuous concern that the British would use schools to convert the Maltese to Protestantism. In such an atmosphere life in schools was by no means easygoing. Teachers bore the brunt of contrasts and concerns without having the space to show their distress. ; peer-reviewed

Malta has had a long history of occupation. Much of the time the Island was garrisoned and thus civilian everyday life became an integral part of military life especially due to the undeniable fact that the strategic position of Malta required particular attention. Local forces supplemented foreign garrisons brought in by the occupiers and this was surely the case from at least medieval times when the Maltese adult male population was required to do militia duties in defence of their homeland. ; peer-reviewed

The period 1800-1919 was quite an active time with regards 10 the development of education in Malta. Government schools were opened with a gradual but s1eady increase in their number from the 1840s onwards. However, there was also an increase in a variety of private educational establishments. Examining the situation of private schools in Malta must also take into consideration the people who established them and those who formed pan of the staff of such teaching institutions. ; peer-reviewed

The island of Malta has served as a strategic colony since the dawn of history. Since Phoenician and Roman times, the island has been an important base in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Its last colonisers, the British, spent about 180 years using the islands for their imperial needs. The official closing of the British base on 31 March 1979 heralded a new economic and social reality supposedly unhampered by the exigencies of foreigners. Two major post-memory reactions kicked in – nostalgia and aversion to ex-colonial life. The postcolonial Maltese generations exhibit a range of reactions oscillating between love and hate for the British. On the other hand, British ex-service personnel and their families have continued to feel an affinity with the island base which they had come to acknowledge as a second home. This allows for a new type of relationship between the Maltese people and their British visitors where issues of colonial post-memory are negotiated. These are seen at their best in the local tourism industry. Malta woos British tourists and goes to great effort to attract them. It uses to its advantage the colonial affinity to create an attractive destination for the British which benefits the locals and the Maltese economy. In Malta post-memory has evolved in line with necessity and expediency, where animosity, though manifestly tangible, has gradually morphed into a rather benign residue in the collective reaction to the colonial past.

In the Maltese educational system, history teaching can be traced back to at least the 19th century when popular education was established in Malta. It was in the year 1800 that Malta became part of the British Empire and this political development imposed on Maltese students the learning of the history of the mother country. On the other hand Malta had, since the Middle Ages, a strong predisposition towards the Italian/Sicilian culture and this led to a strong Italianisation of both the language of teaching and the subjects taught. This was the background to the evolution of the history lesson in Maltese schools at least up to the beginning of the 20th century. At this time Anglicisation became evermore prominent in local education and linguistic and cultural pressure determined a reform in the history syllabus which became much more 'English' in form and tendency. All this changed once again with Malta's political independence from Great Britain in 1964 when national issues and interests became embedded in the new history syllabus. From the 1960s onwards, therefore, Maltese schools taught more the history of Malta, with British history being substituted for European and World History. ; peer-reviewed