Where this was said
Political Culture, Identity & the Education Connection
At 1:09:15 · chapter starts 1:01:40
The conversation deepens into questions of culture and identity. David Grech describes a session he ran in 2022 with Maltese children aged 11 to 14, asking them about political leadership. Their responses illuminated how political loyalties — inherited from family, reinforced by community — are already hardened before the teenage years. This, he argues, is why Maltese politics is so tribal and why rational policy arguments so rarely shift opinions. The education system, the panel agrees, is both the source of the problem and the potential solution: if schools taught critical thinking, media literacy, and civic engagement seriously, the next generation of voters would be better equipped to demand quality governance. Robert Formosa notes this is a long game — the benefits of educational reform take a generation to materialise — which brings the conversation full circle to the instant-gratification problem.
Approximately 5,000 additional foreign residents settled in Malta between 2022 and 2026, adding further pressure on housing, infrastructure and services.
Malta's Vision 2050 plan reportedly targets six million tourists per year, a figure many analysts consider dangerous for the island's carrying capacity.
