The draft National Youth Policy (NYP) issued by the Parliamentary Secretary for Youth and Sport (PSYS) is currently being studied by all those who are involved in youth spheres.
It is a policy based on the present legal state of affairs and the goals needed to be achieved. It tends to be superficial as it does not mention the means by which these aims are to be achieved.
One solution can be that of formulating a separate document in which the stakeholders, action plan, and target dates are set for every single policy aim.
The PSYS cannot do a single move in reaching aims set up in the health sector, without coordinating with the Ministry for Social Policy, and so on and so forth in other sectors.
More so, if no target dates are set up, none of the parties involved will take this policy seriously. In its reaction to this Draft NYP, the Labour Youth Forum (LYF) was spot on when pointing out that this policy falls really short by its lack of mention of the housing challenges which youth are facing.
It also did well to point out that while the PSYS is rightly encouraging e-learning, it also needs to widen its vision and conceive the digital divide as a local challenge.
Another interesting suggestion made by the LYF was that of proposing full infrastructural accessibility of physically disabled persons within educational institutions as a policy aim, something which the draft NYP did not mention.
There were also some shortcomings as regards the way in which the policy addresses the educational sector. I believe that more emphasis had to be put on the need of transmitting intercultural communication skills through the pedagogical system. Malta is facing migrants from eastern Europe, ex-Yugoslavia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and the best way to be able to harmonise our society is to spread a sense of understanding among our youngsters of other cultures, religions and ethnic groups.
I hope that the government will not opt to create another agency in order to implement this policy. There are agencies that are highly beneficial to our society but then I can mention others that smelled badly!
A hands-on approach and good political will are the keys to implementing such policies.