KNŻ calls for civic education

Kunsill Nazzjonali taż-Żgħażagħ (KNŻ) yesterday announced its intention to lobby the Maltese government to give the necessary tools to citizens, especially young people, to critically evaluate Malta’s current affairs by means of democratic principles.

The press conference, held outside Parliament yesterday, was called on the eve of International Youth Day; this year’s theme is ‘safe spaces’. KNZ President Michael Piccinino emphasized that this theme should be tackled through education. He held that this is an opportunity for the competent authorities to try to engage all stakeholders to discuss and propose new formal and non-formal components in the National Curriculum to address this current gap in our educational system through a consultative committee. Such consultative committee would later transform itself into a monitoring committee to continuously evaluate the implementation of this initiative. He reminded the media that this process should also keep in mind the education of the general public, especially parents to make sure that young people are less influenced by partisan elements. He remarked that KNZ is ready to take this matter forward through all democratic means possible due to the importance of the subject at hand.

Piccinino remarked that the past year was overall positive for youth in Malta with the adoption of Vote16, the lowering of the age of consent to the age of 16 and other legislative changes in the pipeline, namely a change in the Voluntary Organisations Act to allow 16year-olds to actively fully participate in Maltese democracy. He also said that KNZ’s current work in this area includes a mid-term evaluation of the National Youth Policy (2015-2020) and the dissemination and effective implementation of the EU 2018 Youth Goals.