Page 44 - IJPS-8-1

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
The travails of gerontology education in

Malta: Challenges and possibilities

Marvin Formosa*
Department of Gerontology and Dementia Studies, Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta,
Msida, Malta

Abstract
As in recent decades, Malta has experienced an increase in both the number of available
university programs in ageing studies and graduate students, the aim of this article
is to evaluate the country’s efforts in ensuring a trained workforce in gerontology,
geriatrics, and dementia education. While Malta punches above its weight as far
as gerontology education is concerned, one also notes a number of shortcomings.
The country is still devoid of a clear space for professional gerontologists to put in
practice all their knowledge, and unfortunately both public and private employers
are still highly unaware of the skills that professional gerontologists can bring toward
the improvement of the quality of life and well-being of older persons living either
in the community or long-term care. Moreover, curricula remain hindered by two
key limitations. Primarily, there is a disproportionate Western bias in the choice of
theories and practices in all realms of ageing studies. Second, that no full-time faculty
member at the Department of Gerontology and Dementia Studies is a geriatrician,
and that such faculty members all service the University on a visiting basis. In this
*Corresponding author: respect, this chapter recommends three key and urgent strategies for gerontology
Marvin Formosa, education in Malta. These include establishing gerontology as a discipline in its own
(marvin.formosa@um.edu.mt) right is long overdue, founding gerontology as a bona fide profession, and accrediting
Citation: Formosa M. (2022). The gerontology.
travails of gerontology education in
Malta: Challenges and possibilities.
International Journal of Population Keywords: Geriatrics; Dementia studies; Ageing; Higher education; University
Studies, 8(1):38-48.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v8i1.1311
Received: April 4, 2022
Accepted: June 13, 2022 1. Introduction
Published Online: June 27, 2022 Some 15 years ago, Askham et al. (2007) anticipated that despite the increasing number
and percentage of persons aged 65-plus, many of whom require community or residential
Copyright: © 2022 Author(s).
This is an Open-Access article care services, the demand for gerontology education will fall and that there is a strong
distributed under the terms of the possibility for many gerontology departments to close. True to their word, financial
Creative Commons Attribution restraints have affected the global number of gerontology and geriatric programs, to
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, the extent that in many countries, such programs are closing or have become stagnant
provided the original work is (Silverstein and Fitzgerald, 2017). However, this is far from the case in Malta. Malta
properly cited. is a European Union (EU) Member State and at end of 2020, Malta’s total population
Publisher’s Note: AccScience reached 516,100 persons (National Statistics Office, 2021). While 18.9% (97.418 persons)
Publishing remains neutral with were aged 65+, the 80+, and 90+ cohorts reached 4.3% (22,183 persons) and 0.6%
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional (3207 persons), respectively. Such demographic trends are due, to a large extent, to the
th
affiliations. country’s rising levels of life expectancy. While at the beginning of the 20 century life

Volume 8 Issue 1 (2022) 38 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v8i1.1311