During my ever so memorable appearance on Bondiplus a few weeks ago I had, en passant, expressed the wish that I wanted everyone in Malta to attend orchestral concerts and Mr Bondì, very spontaneously, retorted "Dream on!" which I assured him I would. Ever since my own debut in The Times as its music critic way back in 1974 I have striven to achieve nothing else but that.

I strongly believe that it is our educational system, which relegates culture and the arts to the back burner, that is responsible for today's dwindling audiences and, more significantly, the rise in their average age. Although it appears that there is no lack of young people actually performing, the audiences are relatively static. Culture is still regarded as some sort of luxury to be indulged in only by the privileged and the well-heeled who can afford to send their children to extra-curricular piano, ballet or art lessons or have the wherewithal to attend operas, plays and concerts at the Manoel Theatre swathed in furs and loden coats at an average of €20 a go. This is the most off-putting popular perception that needs to be killed once and for all.

Although I am sure there are schemes that benefit students and pensioners, they are not advertised. If they were, as was the free dress rehearsal of Cambiale di Matrimonio and Aleko last month, then the result would be a packed house as was this event. The Manoel Theatre was filled to the rafters despite the indifferent booking statistics given to us the preceding week by the Manoel's chairman on the same Bondiplus programme. Therefore, with some judicious encouragement, the audiences are there for the taking. It is a question of wooing and recruiting them.

There was a time when the ministry responsible for culture put up many performances free of charge. Unforgettable performances of Verdi's Requiem and Beethoven's Choral Symphony at St John's Co Cathedral immediately spring to mind while a plethora of open-air extravaganzas out of Valletta alleviated the boredom of long hot summers in the 1980s when this obsession of trying to run culture like a business was something unheard of and taking culture to the people was regarded as a social obligation.

I still believe in this implicitly. Every form of popular culture, whether it makes actual money or not, is an investment that will enrich us, our children and our children's children. Because in the last couple of decades, education has focused on technology rather than the arts we are now suffering from a lack of enthusiasm and appreciation of cultural subjects that is not conducive to a healthy eclectic mix. Admittedly, all the opportunities and facilities are more or less there, however, there are so many distractions and alternatives that attending a concert, for instance, for a young student, is the equivalent of attending a lecture at the University and not a pleasurable and rewarding experience. It is a question of attitude.

This is why I believe that our cultural policy should change into a more proactive one. The summer arts festival should leave the hot streets of Valletta and organise orchestral concerts at Għar id-Dud or Żebbuġ Square with music that people will instinctively know and love. Play the first inimitably wonderful bars of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and you will, in one splendiferous swoop, hook hundreds of converts for life!

The three glaring omissions in our cultural facilities must also be addressed with urgency.

The Malta Philharmonic has been homeless since its divorce from the Manoel Theatre in 1997 and the recent allocation of the Robert Samut Hall is inadequate; it is pitifully small.

Two hundred years of art are unaccounted for as we have no Museum of Modern Art and the public library is anything but user-friendly and placed most awkwardly in a ditch in Floriana. It has also been reported that the books themselves are in a state and the library needs an overhaul. However; Rome was not built in a day but by the time the year 2018 comes around, sooner rather than later, these lacunae must be filled as Valletta will be designated as Europe's cultural capital by the EU - and then what?

I still believe that Systems of Knowledge, a good thing intrinsically, must be overhauled and expanded. Throwing philosophy, music, art and history and what-have-you at a 15-year-old who was never ever encouraged to explore them and has no inkling of what they are about is like a game of hit or miss. Some may grasp it by the skin of their teeth and others will curse the day they were not weaned on it sooner. However, for many the "great leap forward" may be too much and they will tragically reject the arts completely and forever.

I believe that, with baby steps and no great leaps, culture may become part and parcel of our children's lives and we will, eventually, maybe not in my lifetime, be all the richer for it.