If beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, then our young people are not seeing much beauty in the portrait of modern Malta. Young people, usually defined as those between the age of 16 and 40, are not traditionally known to suffer from bouts of nostalgia for the good old days. Their views on what they see as the country’s merits and weaknesses reflect their understanding of how they would want things to change for the better.

Two recently published surveys paint a dismal picture of the country in the eyes of our young people. The EY Generate Youth Survey delves into young people’s attitude to the environment, local politics, religion, and other issues that affect their behaviour and priorities.

Another survey conducted by FreeHour Malta, addresses the issues of education, the political culture, and the attractiveness of the island as a place where one would prefer to live and work. The messages from both surveys are not flattering. They should lead to deep soul-searching by societal leaders, including politicians, the Church, business leaders, and socio-economic policymakers.

Unsurprisingly, overdevelopment, traffic, inflation, and the environment are the top four ranking challenges that those participating in the EY survey identified.

These young people cannot be criticised for wearing rosy spectacles when they compare today’s overbuilt urban and rural environment with what the country looked like when their parents were young.

Put simply, young people are showing that the price paid to oil the wheels of the economy by resorting to construction has been enormous. Politicians’ reluctance to acknowledge this problem will eventually lead to their downfall.

Another unsurprising conclusion of the EY survey is that a significant majority of today’s Maltese youngsters do not consider themselves religious and “do not feel connected to any one church”.

Rev Paul Galea, deputy dean of the Faculty of Theology, says: “One has to ask if this is typical of the young and that perhaps they might come back to roost when they get older and wiser”.

Could the reason for deepening secularisation in society be that the Church may not be seen as addressing the real issues that affect the lives of the community?

A whopping 82 per cent of those interviewed in the FreeHour survey believed the educational system failed to prepare them for stress management and felt that the educational system has failed to prepare them for entrepreneurship. These are the people who will be leading the various economic activities of the country. Policymakers need to acknowledge this structural failure in the education system.

Once again, the EY youth survey shows that almost three quarters once again say they would rather live outside Malta, citing different reasons for this.

This finding waves a red flag to draw attention to the risk of a brain drain of young, qualified youngsters, as is happening in neighbouring Italy.

While political, religious, and other societal leaders solemnly declare their commitment to involve more young people in their decision-making structures, they are failing to convince them about the effectiveness of these strategies.

The last thing that modern Malta needs is a disgruntled generation of young people who feel betrayed by today’s grey-haired and often misguided societal leaders.

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