And the next President is... Lawrence Gonzi

Claudia Calleja asked 10 students 10 current affairs questions... and some of their answers are quite interesting

As the country debated the nomination of Malta's next President and the war in Gaza dominated international headlines, it might come as a surprise that some University students were clueless about such issues.

In a vox pop on campus last week, an English and psychology student actually mentioned Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi as the next President and while a communications student questioned if Gaza was a country.

Only one out of the 10 students approached knew that Joe Biden was the American Vice-President-elect and mention of Renzo Piano, the world-famous Italian architect who will be redesigning Valletta's entrance, drew blank faces. Only two knew who he was and that he has been commissioned to design Valletta City Gate and the opera house ruins, despite the ongoing controversy, particularly on the latter. And, it has to be said, one of them was an architecture student. The other is an aspiring pharmacist.

These were among the replies given by University students in a brief exercise carried out by The Times in the wake of a recent survey showing that fewer than half of them recognised their rector.

Five knew that Gaza is in the Middle East, between Israel and Egypt, and the rest had no clue. When it came to the new President of Malta, who was announced officially last week amid intense media attention, only six correctly named George Abela.

Students seem a little more conversant with Catholic affairs. All of them knew that the Pope is Pope Benedict XVI, even though a few got confused on the number, and some actually mentioned his last name, Ratzinger. Interestingly, half were aware that something the Pope said recently sparked off a debate with regard to homosexuals and the Church.

Even culture and entertainment seems to be quite popular with students. Most knew who tenor Joseph Calleja was and even knew that he would soon be singing with American pop singer Michael Bolton. But even here, in the case of foreign entertainment, only two were aware that the Golden Globe awards have just been distributed, even though most knew that John Travolta's teenage son Jett tragically passed away a few weeks ago.

Although this exercise was in no way representative of the student population, many students mentioned that they were not really interested in current affairs and some were apologetic for not knowing the answers, often blaming it on the fact that they were immersed in exams.

The head of the University's Department of Youth and Community Studies, Marilyn Clark, also defended students' apparent ignorance of what is going on around them.

Rather than blame this lack of general knowledge on students' apathy or disinterest, she said this should raise the question: What are adults doing to encourage young people to participate?

She believes that if students are shown that their opinion matters and given opportunities to take part in activities, they will develop a better sense of efficacy and automatically become more interested.

"Citizenship education, the preparation of individuals to participate as active and responsible citizens in a democracy must be given more importance in the local curriculum," Dr Clark said when contacted.

This need not take place just in the classroom but is more effectively achieved through informal education activities of youth work that is about the personal, social and political education of young people.

"If we want engaged and active citizens we need to invest in them. We need to provide young people with opportunities to become knowledgeable about local, national and global issues. Youth work initiatives sensitise young people to other ways of seeing the world and encourage them to act with others to make their communities a better place," she said.

Education Minister Dolores Cristina made a similar point when speaking about the reforms ahead in the higher education sector.

She said the new strategy on higher education, which is in the pipeline, would tackle this problem by, among other things, enhancing the importance of creativity and independent thinking among students.