The 1st of May celebrations are not just ordinary celebrations.  They bring together all those who, everyday, go to work independently of the employment they are in.  In the past it was an opportunity to push forward one point or another in the quest for better rights.  Today it is a celebration of what we have achieved together.

Of course, there are still challenges which we have to overcome when it comes to a general debate on the improvement of the standards of living of workers. But all in all there is a lot to celebrate for when we see how the Government, in the past years, intervened to protect the lives and livelihoods of workers in the face of the pandemic and how today we have, despite all challenges coming in the form of maladies or international conflicts, the largest amount of people in employment ever in our country.

It has been said over and over again that Malta is a country which absolutely lacks natural resources and therefore the only resource is the human resource, making it the main and the most important one.  And this is true: the workers are the main resource which we have and therefore it is in everyone’s interest to see that those workers have the necessary skills to take Malta to the next level in a highly competitive international arena.

Until a month ago I was in charge of the research and innovation portfolio and there I could see first hand what talent could bring to the symbolic national table if coupled with investment.  There I used to work with the creme de la creme of the educational process, the success stories of the people who achieved remarkable qualifications after years and years of patient study.

That reality can easily be extended to the whole of Malta.  In order for our country to succeed it needs a Government which takes the right decisions, but we also need upskilled and reskilled workers to face today’s realities head on.

And this brings us to a whole debate on Eduction and how we can make sure that more and more people come out of the educational journey endowed with the necessary skills in the world of tomorrow, be it in the academic field or vocational field 

When I was being brought up, the educational system we had used to “produce” success stories at the expense of a lot of people.  The method used was very simple: identify at the age of 10/11 the best brains in the academic field and invest the major resources on them at the expense of all the others.

We had large amounts of people at the time who, from the young age of 11, were cast aside to “make room” for the so-called “best and the brightest”.  We had, over time, very notable exceptions of people who despite being segregated at the wrong end of the selection process had a very successful career and were very good at what they did.  But by and large the investment made in the best and the brightest came at the expense of a lot of other students who were not afforded an equal opportunity to make it at school.

Not to mention the absolute lack of assistance at the time for students with learning disabilities who, completely unassisted, were at an enormous disadvantage compared with the others.

Now, the educational system has evolved in such a manner that we are focusing all our resources to make sure that each student has an opportunity to make it, be it in the academic sector or the vocational sector.  We are investing huge amounts of money to provide our students with the best educational journey possible to make it theirs and to succeed independently of the route they choose.

And here again I would like to mention a crucial category of people who are at the heart of all this: the heads and assistant heads of school, teachers, Learning Support Assistants and Kindergarten educators.  In my short 10-month stint as Education Minister I grew very fond of our educators because I know that, in the absolute majority of cases, they are people with a passion to see their students become better persons.

Every child needs a champion and in most cases the educators are the ultimate champion for our children.   The fantastic work they do with our children should never be underestimated or taken for granted because it is indeed very good.  Therefore, allow me to thank all our educators, past and present, who went out of their way to see the upcoming generation succeed.

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Culture is also the place of work for thousands of people.  We want to see a more robust and stronger cultural economy because the larger it is, the more people are exposed to culture which is in turn a very good thing for a lot of reasons.

A crucial aspect of all this is the private sector.  We want the private sector to thrive and prosper because it is the motor which creates wealth in the most efficient of manners. That is why I really enjoyed attending to the launch of Edward Mercieca and his wife Marika’s private venture: Theatre Next Door.  It is a large complex in Maghtab, limits of Naxxar, which houses a full black box theatre and various creative spaces.  The detail with which is adorned is impressive, as are all the creative practictioners working within the whole complex.

This is a place which is really different from everything else that I have seen in Malta.  It has passion at heart, which comes from the dedication of a family who is completely immersed in culture and the creative economy.

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Tomorrow we will be marking a full one month since the new Cabinet of Ministers was unveiled. It was a month of very hard work for me, but full of satisfaction as, in this short time, we successfully steered forward Muzika Muzika, the Venice Biennale installation and the Valletta Green festival to name the major projects. 

I look forward to working together with everyone who has the creative sector at heart.