The role of youth organisations as non-formal educators : the situation in the Maltese islands

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the role of youth organisations in Malta and Gozo as non formal educators and to their impact on the personal and social development of young people, including their ability to bring about social transformation. Various policy documents and educational theories emphasize the complementary role of non-formal vis a-vis formal education and so the importance of institutions, such as youth organisations, functioning alongside the formal educational system. Young people nowadays require various so-called soft skills and appropriate attitudes to be in a position to use their academic studies in the most efficient way in work and other equally essential life situations. For this purpose it is important to identify and assess the potential of youth organisations in Malta to generate non-formal modes of learning and education. This qualitative study confirms that local youth organisations are basic instruments for the consolidation of an increasingly wider spectrum of non-formal modes of learning and education. Indeed they can supply young people with various skills, attitudes and kinds of knowledge. They are sites of experimental learning through which one learns by actually "doing" the thing in cooperation with their peers and in some form of organisational setting. They are contributing to the acquisition of a variety of skills - mainly those concerning interpersonal and intrapersonal relations, group formation and organisational skills. These skills are essential for the development of the individual and for promoting social exclusion and, indirectly at least, minimize the risk of long-term unemployment. This study has found that youth organisations need to keep on exploring how they can give increasingly more space to individual initiative and at the same time create a cooperative spirit among their members. A critical issue is the extent to which they are helping young people to break through the culture of silence on matters of social justice and concern. This point clearly to the need of youth organisations to make use of professionally trained youth workers, since otherwise their potential to generate non-formal modes of learning and education will not be fully developed.