The Culture Pass 2018 launched

Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government Owen Bonnici, together with Arts Council Malta, launched the Culture Pass for the year 2018 at St Benedict’s College in Kirkop.

Minister Bonnici said that the Government is evidently working to invest in the cultural sector of our country. He continued by stating that, “we want our children and grandchildren to love art and creativity. In light of this, Culture Pass was launched last year, where students who attend middle and secondary schools can benefit from this feast of creativity.”

As part of its Create2020 strategy, Arts Council Malta sees accessibility to art as extremely important. This programme, offered by the Government and ACM, is giving children the right to experience at least one cultural activity a year through the school they attend, and in this way, students are able to participate actively in arts and culture.

The launch also comprised of a play called ‘Everything you need to know about Science’ by More or Less Theatre, giving a taste of what the Culture Pass has to offer. The Culture Pass is a programme aimed at secondary school students and will be replacing the Culture Card. It gives every secondary school student the opportunity to experience a minimum of one artistic production a year, produced by creative professionals and presented through a curated programme.

This new programme is designed to provide all secondary school students with professional cultural and artistic experiences of the highest quality, to complement the learning outcomes of the National Curriculum Framework, as well as add value to arts education and other curricular subjects. It is also intended to encourage creative practitioners to create and develop new works directed at younger audiences and to increase the programme’s capacity over longer periods of time, with the purpose of incorporating artistic and non-artistic disciplines into students’ curriculum.

The programme’s artistic genres include dance, theatre, music, visual art, film, literature and heritage. This year, all secondary schools are able to choose from a range of 25 artistic events and are required to select suitable events for their students to ensure a dynamic calendar of cultural activities related to their education with the aim of instilling an appreciation towards culture and the arts.

Between January and June of 2017, an estimated 8,700 students benefitted from the Culture Pass programme.