Three out of every four students aged between eight and 15 own a mobile phone, with 10 per cent using it to access the internet, according to a Malta Communications Authority survey.

Mobile phones cemented their place as a media delivery platform for young people, Communications Ministry parliamentary assistant Charlò Bonnici said, adding today’s generation learnt and communicated in different ways than the previous ones.

Speaking at the MLearn 2010 conference, Mr Bonnici said Malta had more than 434,000 active mobile subscribers, with a penetration rate of almost 105 per cent.

Even the typical use for mobiles had changed, he said, because mobile phones included other gadgets and applications.

“The way we interact socially has also changed in the past years,” Mr Bonnici said, adding social networks had enticed millions of users to sign up.

“With such developments, we must understand that if we want to gain access to students we need to embark on a programme that will affiliate traditional learning methods with new technologies,” he said. In line with this, Mr Bonnici said, the government published a smart learning strategy in 2008. Through eLearning, traditional teaching methods were bridged with innovative information and ICT driven systems. This gave every student personal online learning space for storing and personalising content, allowing them to submit homework and assignments online and network with other students, Mr Bonnici added.

Since 2000, the government had also been delivering its services online and had over 80 fully transaction-based services.

“We are now revolutionising the concept of eGovernment and creating a generation of electronic services by pro-viding a simpler user interface which merges similar services together,” Mr Bonnici said, adding the government wanted to provide the services through mobile phones and digital television.