A kindergarten teacher has revealed how an unnamed cabinet minister pressured her into giving gold stars to his child for drawings she made in summer school.
The minister, who has not been identified, is alleged to have told the teacher to lavish praise upon his four-year-old daughter for her crayon drawings.
“Even by a child’s standards, her drawings are terrible. Yesterday she came up to me and said “Look Miss, cat!” and showed me a shapeless blob she’d drawn. Even getting her to put the crayons to the paper was a challenge at first, as she kept trying to eat them instead,” the teacher, Jessica Mercieca, said.
“But I had to give her a gold star because her father, who is a minister, said he would get me fired if I didn’t.”
The teacher said she tried to reason with the minister.
“I told him it wasn’t a big deal because it’s only summer school, and anyway just because a child is bad at drawing doesn’t mean they aren’t good at other things. But he insisted I tell her she’ll be a great artist one day, and that he’d already paid for a place for her at the Paris College Of Art. He wants her to become an artist so she can get commissions from the government and rake in public money, just like her dad.”
When contacted, all ministers denied they had put pressure on their children’s teachers.
“My daughter happens to be a brilliant artist, a generational talent, so why would I need to threaten her teachers? Besides, I’m the last person who would do anything corrupt,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg.
