If we ever had any doubt about how young people felt about living in this country at this moment in time, we need only look at the surveys. In October of last year, the findings of an EY ‘Generate Youth’ survey were published. This survey showed that 70% of Maltese youths see a future for themselves outside of the country and, almost a year later, statistics have shown that things have far from improved.

A survey by FreeHour in conjunction with Marketing Advisory Services found that 83% of Malta’s young people believe that the country’s environmental situation will worsen in the next five years, 80.9% felt that Malta still has a culture of impunity and 77.8% believe that the education system will remain the same or worsen in the next five years. Add all the above to the fact that a further 81% believe that salaries are too low in Malta and it makes for a sobering, staggering recipe for disaster.

The writing, it would seem, is on the wall. Yet, despite this, we keep trudging on with ministers only interested in cutting more ribbons in shows of opulent pageantry and further bloating an already overblown civil service with “their people”.

There are plenty of issues to choose from but let’s take education, for example. Everyone has known there is a problem with the system for some time. This isn’t something that just cropped up yesterday. Instead of firefighting the daily qualms that come up, where are the long-term plans to improve a system that has racked up failure after failure?

It’s no secret that we continue to perform dismally in basic core skills, such as reading and mathematics, while making one of the EU’s most significant financial investments in education per capita and,  ultimately, what this tells me is that all we are doing is throwing vast amounts of money we don’t have at the problem, with no rhyme or reason, and literally hoping for the best. Where are the fresh ideas? Where are the programmes that will be able to play up to people’s different strengths so that those with different abilities don’t get left behind?

Problems of lack of foresight and long-term planning seem to seep into every sector of the country- Anna Marie Galea

We have one of the highest rates of early school-leavers and half of our workforce is made up of workers that have what has been defined as a ‘low level of education’: is this not a cause for concern for anyone? Even the fact that we continue to suffer a teacher shortage speaks volumes about what is effectively being done to improve a dire situation.

The problems of lack of foresight and long-term planning seem to seep into every sector of the country relentlessly and with devastating consequences. We overbuild, thinking only of the money we are going to make today without a care for the ugliness it brings. We build more roads to accommodate an already heaving infrastructure despite our air quality being what it is and we continue to teach subjects in a rigid, out-of-touch way despite our track record showing time and time again that this does not work. The list goes on and on and on.

Can anyone blame our young people for putting their hands in the air and saying they’ve had enough in a relationship where the other party flatly refuses to change? I certainly don’t.