The youngest people on these islands cannot vote, cannot lobby, and cannot write columns like this one. They are the only generation whose whole life will be shaped by decisions made entirely by people who will not have to live inside the result. Gen Alpha, the under-18s, get a curriculum, a phone, and a labour market handed to them. They get no say in any of the three.
So somebody has to draft their demands for them. Here is the prospectus I would put in their name. Five things they should be able to expect, each one with a number attached so we cannot pretend later that we did not know.
One. The right to read. In the 2022 PISA tests, Malta's fifteen-year-olds scored 445 in reading against an OECD average of 476. Only 64 in every 100 reached the basic proficiency line, against 74 across the OECD. That score has not moved since 2012. A child who cannot comfortably read a tenancy agreement, a payslip, or the small print on a loan is not free in an economy that runs on documents. Reading is not a soft subject. It is the precondition for every other right on this list.
Two. The right to a fair start. In 2024, 25.9 per cent of Maltese children under 18 were at risk of poverty, up again on the year before. The gap opens before the first school bell rings. Among the poorest under-threes, only 24.3 per cent are in early childhood education, against 48.5 per cent of their better-off classmates. By the time these children meet in a classroom, one has had two years of learning the other has not. We then call the difference talent. Care for the weak is not charity here, it is the cheapest investment the state will ever make.
Three. The right not to be sold cheap. Here is the good news the government rightly celebrates. Early school leaving has fallen to 8.6 per cent, below the EU average for the first time on record. Now read the second number. Of the young Maltese who do leave school early, 75 per cent walk straight into a job, the highest rate anywhere in the Union, against an EU average of under half. We are not keeping these teenagers in school. Our labour market is buying them out of it. A sixteen-year-old behind a till is cheap this year and expensive for the next thirty. An economy that treats a child's time as its lowest-cost input is not a strong economy, it is a short-sighted one.
Four. The right to a childhood that is not for sale online. The December 2025 Green Paper on social media reform, the phone ban now in primary and middle schools, the work around Safer Internet Day, these are good instincts and I support them. But a ban is a wall, not an education, and walls are easy to climb. Teach digital literacy with the same seriousness we give to mathematics. Back the parents who set the rules at home instead of leaving the whole job to a platform's age gate, which exists to be lied to. Protecting children online is a shared duty, closest to the family, supported by the school, framed by the state, in that order.
Five. The right to a plan that outlasts a legislature. Vision 2050 calls skills the new currency, and it is right. The National Education Strategy 2024 to 2030 sets the correct pillars. The risk is the oldest one in Maltese public life, that a thirty-year promise gets spent inside five-year electoral cycles. Insulate the human-capital plan from the election calendar. Publish the numbers every year. Judge it on one honest test, whether a child in Bormla or in Victoria reads better in 2030 than a child did in 2022.
None of this is exotic. It is the difference between a country that manages its young and one that invests in them. And the texture matters. A Gozitan child still crosses more water than a Maltese one to reach a thinner labour market and fewer choices. A child in the South still hears, somewhere along the way, that the vocational door is the lesser door, which is a lie we keep telling because it is cheaper than fixing the buildings behind it.
I have an interest to declare, since I make my living in training and skills. But notice that every figure here belongs to the state, the OECD, or Eurostat, not to me. The case does not need my industry. It needs a mirror.
The whole manifesto comes down to a single line, and it is not addressed to the children. It is addressed to us. Judge this generation kindly, because one day it will judge us, and on this evidence it will have read the file.
References
OECD. PISA 2022 Results, Country Note: Malta. Reading 445 versus OECD 476; 64 per cent versus 74 per cent at Level 2; flat since 2012. oecd.org
NSO Malta. EU-SILC 2024: Salient Indicators. Under-18 at-risk-of-poverty rate 25.9 per cent in 2024; early childhood education participation gap for at-risk under-threes 24.3 per cent versus 48.5 per cent. nso.gov.mt
Eurostat. Early school leavers down to 9.1 per cent in 2025; Malta 8.6 per cent, below the EU average for the first time. ec.europa.eu/eurostat
The Malta Independent. Fewer early school leavers, but where are they actually going? 75 per cent of Malta's early leavers in employment, the highest in the EU. independent.com.mt
Government of Malta. Green Paper on Social Media Reform: Safeguarding Children, December 2025 consultation; minimum-age and age-verification proposals. reforms.gov.mt
Better Internet for Kids (European Commission). Safer Internet Day 2026 in Malta; digital wellbeing focus, circular to 150 schools. better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu
Malta Vision 2050. Skills as "the new currency". maltavision.mt
Ministry for Education. National Education Strategy 2024-2030; three pillars: Wellbeing; Growth and Empowerment; Equity and Inclusion. education.gov.mt