Sport as a Vehicle for Change: David Agius on Youth, Sport, and the Environment

Hon. David Agius is the Deputy Speaker of the Maltese Parliament and a Member of Parliament representing the Opposition. In addition to his parliamentary role, he serves as the Opposition Spokesperson for EU Funds and Sports, areas in which he actively advocates for strategic investment, youth engagement, and sustainable development. With a strong interest in the intersection of sport, education, and environmental sustainability, Hon. Agius brings a forward-looking perspective to national policy discussions aimed at improving the quality of life and empowering Malta’s younger generations.

Keep reading to see the questions we asked and how he responded.

How do you see sport playing a role in educating youth and environmental sustainability?

I strongly believe in the importance of sports and education, as well as environmental sustainability. I also believe that we need to integrate sports into the education system, starting from the lower levels. We need to have more coaches, more caregivers, and more teachers who are ready to train and be with our students for at least 15 minutes of physical education per day for every student at every level of education.

We have quite a number of people who are obese in Malta, and we have to see that we tackle this problem immediately. And obviously, as regards environmental sustainability, we need to focus on energy, we need to focus also on other items that, with sport, we can generate energy in a way that people are more active and in a way that we integrate more people in society. Integration is also vital in sports and education.

What’s the Opposition’s plan for including sports and environmental activities in youth and education programmes?

Yes, recently we had a debate, we had a discussion with coaches, with teachers, with sports associations, and we need to do two things. First of all, we need to have a plan to increase the number of teachers in physical education and coaches. We need to have professionalism in coaching, and we not only use that in the normal organisations of sport, but also in education. So, we need to invest money besides infrastructure so that we will have more people in our schools who are ready and available, so that we will have our young people, and we have our students practising sports practically every day. And if we do that, then obviously other natural things will happen. We'll have more people and more students and more athletes in our organisations, we'll have more competitions, we'll have more teams, and obviously we'll have a culture of sports.

In your opinion, what role do youth workers and educators play in effectively implementing sports and youth initiatives, and how can they be supported?

They have to be supported because, first of all, we need to encourage youths to choose this profession. We have to make sure that our university is prepared to integrate and to have more students who choose these subjects, so that when they qualify and become professionals in the system, they will be able to help in increasing the culture of sports in the everyday running of schools in our university, etc. But we need to invest.

We need to invest both financially and in infrastructure, and we also need to understand that not everyone can be a coach and not everyone can be a teacher, a physical education teacher. We have to be professional because our youths, our students, deserve this.

How can environmental sustainability be embedded into national sports policy or sports funding frameworks?

Interesting, we have lots of places where, for example, we can use the roof in order to generate energy. We can also have a number of infrastructure sports facilities, where we can add a parking facility. Just recently in Parliament, we gave quite a substantial amount of land to Floriana FC, where today we have a parking system. What are we going to do? Remove the parking system, and we won't have sports? We have sports, and we won't have a parking system? We can have both. We can integrate both. So the sports facilities need to have and include parking facilities, environmentally friendly measures, and accessibility. And above all, I think we also need to understand that in sports, we need to have accessibility with regard to transportation. We need to have transport that can actually have our youths travel from their home to the infrastructure, to the sports pavilion without using cars, but use public transport. And that, yes, is doable. And yes, we can do that.

Looking ahead, how could Malta position itself as a regional leader in using sport for environmental education?

We're lacking a bit here. I will give you one example, our university. We have to invest in the sports facilities at the university. We do have a very good gym. Close to the gym, we have a very good water polo facility. But see the athletics track. We have to invest there. And that will be one of, I say, four facilities. I call them sports villages, which we should have in Malta. One at university, yes, but we have to invest and upgrade. Second is at Marsa, where we have a number of facilities already, including an athletics track, rugby and others.

We have Ta’ Qali, basketball, and football, and we need to improve those as well. And another one in Gozo. If we have these four facilities, these sports villages up and running, then yes, we can promote Malta as a Mediterranean facility for sports. Lately, the Mediterranean University opened near St. Aloysius, which is good. But besides that, we need to invest more in sports. And to invest more in sports, we need to do two things.

First, the government will need to invest more in its national budget. Secondly, we need to have the private sector, who I am sure will be ready to invest in sports facilities, in our sports athletes, in order to upgrade our level of sports in Malta.