One of the Budget initiatives which seems to have passed unnoticed regards a novel experiment ‘to foster creativity’ as its title puts it.

It is: “Students in the first three years of secondary education will be given €15 credit for artistic or cultural activities and visits to historic sites.”

Now this is a wonderful idea. Of course, there will always be those who will say that this is molly-coddling of the young, if they appreciate enough the importance of culture and cultural activities, they must badger mummy and daddy to give them money just as they badger them and get money for their other more appreciated activities, from skateboarding to Wiii-ing.

Others could also say that such cultural offerings should be offered free to students, as is done in so many other countries. But perhaps we are not talking of the same thing here. Of course there are cultural activities, from dress rehearsals to government-owned museums where students enter free (or should enter free). But there are events, venues, etc which are privately-owned and this is, perhaps, what the Budget proposes to open up to students.

Whatever. The post-millennium Maltese students (for that is what we are talking about) are the successors of the TV-generation. Fed and weaned on DVDs, smart mobile phones and multi-functional gadgets, they have absolutely no contact with culture. Reading is on the way out, so is watching documentaries on the History or Discovery channels.

It is true that like their immediate predecessors they are a computer-savvy generation but it would have never crossed their minds to access the internet for cultural offerings. So to try and entice them by offering them this rather small credit to spend on artistic or cultural activities or to visit museums seems a novel way to try and initiate them to culture.

One might think we do not have a lot of cultural offerings in Malta but a close look at what is on offer shows a vibrant cultural milieu which, alas, is restricted to a rather small elite of cultural aficionados.

There is, however, one aspect of this initiative about which we feel we must warn: this must not be a pre-teen version of the students’ stipend. On the whole, the concept of a stipend for tertiary education has worked, as can be seen by the increasing numbers who opt to continue studying after secondary school. But it is also a fact that not all the stipend money is spent on books, etc. Much of it is also spent on clothes, sports things, and other items completely unrelated to the course being followed. We hear, sporadically, of checks and controls but then everything reverts to just as it was over the past years.

This novel concept also helps families, especially those in the lower brackets of society, who normally would not have enough spare cash to send their children to such cultural activities. Many are the schools who tell you of the heartache they face any time they organize something for the students and they see students dropping out because they ‘forgot’ to get the money, when in actual fact their families cannot afford to send them. This idea can now circumvent this handicap and allow students from the least well-to-do families to enjoy what students in the better class of society have always enjoyed as their right.

It is thus also a way of providing today’s students coming from deprived backgrounds with a way of getting an equal starting point as the other students.