While discussing the general budget estimates of the Ministry for Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation in Parliament on Wednesday, Minister Clifton Grima stated that Budget 2026 has increased his Ministry's annual budget by 16% from last year's. Last year's annual budget, Budget 2025, had allocated around a billion euro to the sectors under Grima's remit.
Education Minister Clifton Grima noted that this year's budget is "unprecedented" for the education sector. Grima recalled that while he had previously labelled last year's budget as "the most important" one for this sector, given its approximate €1 billion budget allocation, he noted that this year's budget is even more important given the budget increase towards his Ministry.
The Minister said that the recent work done in these sectors should be acknowledged. Mentioning some examples, he stated that it was this present government to introduce the veterinary course into the Maltese islands, support local sports clubs, and add sports infrastructure across the country.
Minister Grima also affirmed that the three racing-related projects set for Ħal Far - the motorsport hub, the quarter-mile racetrack, and the karting track - are still on the cards.
Discussing education, he stated that under the last PN administration, Malta's early school-leaving rate stood at around 33%, meaning that around one third of students left school before the end of secondary school. Today, this rate sits at below one in every ten.
His parliamentary secretary, Keith Azzopardi Tanti, said during this debate that Malta has a clear vision for his competences - youth, research and innovation - and that this year's budget encapsulates this.
PS Azzopardi Tanti said that "youths are our greatest resource" as a country, and hence, the government continues to place youths at the centre of its politics to help them fulfill their potential. He told the House that the government wants Maltese youths to build their future in the country, which is why it is assisting young people through various schemes for them to become homeowners, he said.
The junior minister added that aside from being homeowners, the government is working to get youths to build families and work in the country by working to make them protagonists in the country.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Youth, Research and Innovation said that the government is committed to research. He publicized that "we want to build a more dynamic, open environment for research," specifically one that is more open to research collaborations.
Before the Minister, his Parliamentary Secretary, and government backbenchers were able to speak about increasing budgets and the Maltese Labour government's commitments for these sectors, Opposition MPs hounded the other side with its criticisms and suggestions.
PN's Claudette Buttigieg observed that Malta is not spending enough money on research.
"I don't believe our country has a concrete plan to attract researchers into our country," she said.
PN MP Buttigieg said that according to Eurostat, Malta spends just 0.61% of its GDP on research and development (R&D). In contrast, EU countries are, on average, allocating 2.2% of their GDP towards this sector. She added that relatively smaller EU countries are allocating closer to around 3% of their GDP towards R&D and emphasised that Malta must step up as "we are investing less than a third of what the average EU country is investing."
"This is not a serious rhythm, our country must move quickly," she said.
She called for a mentality shift and stated that PS Azzopardi Tanti's efforts to increase research spending are not being heard.
Among the four Opposition speakers, including Justin Schembri who hammered on about the education sector, Bernice Bonello who spoke about youth empowerment, and David Agius who focused on sports, Buttigieg drew the least criticism from her counterparts from the Labour Party. So much so that PL MP Ray Abela stated during his intervention that she was the only PN speaker whose speech he agreed with.
Bernice Bonello pointed out that only five local councils currently have a youth ambassador. She called for the government to pressure local councils to not shelf this initiative, so that youths aged 16 and over who "do not have the courage" to put their name out for local council election may still have the opportunity to have their voice be heard within this space.
On education, the Nationalist Party's Justin Schembri spoke about the lack of LSEs decreasing the quality of education for students requiring this learning assistance, and therefore called to attract more people into this line of work by raising the stipend for aspiring teachers, LSEs, and educators up to the minimum wage.
He also called to ameliorate the continuous assessment system brought in by SBAs for later secondary school students and called for more work to be done to promote the Maltese language in schools.
On sports, PN's David Agius called for sports infrastructure projects to be constructed to help these local communities, such as a boċċi dome, the Ħal Far racetrack, more futsal pitches, and support for e-sports.