From Campus Meme to National Motto: How ‘Let’s Get an A’ Took Over Malta

“Let’s get an A” – the three-word rallying cry that started on a University of Malta WhatsApp group last winter – has mushroomed into a national mood. Walk down Republic Street on a Saturday night and you’ll spot the slogan on crop-tops, bumper stickers, even the chalkboards outside pastizzerias (“Let’s get an A in ricotta!”). But beneath the meme lies a very Maltese story of exam panic, community hustle and the island’s age-old trick of turning anxiety into carnival.

It began when 19-year-old psychology student Lea Saliba posted a voice note minutes before her statistics resit: “Ejja, guys, let’s get an A and go to Għar Lapsi.” The clip, complete with clattering karozzin traffic in the background, was auto-captioned by Instagram as “Let’s get an A” and stitched into 3,000 TikToks within 48 hours. By the time the first results were released in February, #LetsGetAnA had outperformed #Valletta2024. The phrase was no longer about grades; it was about collective chutzpah.

Malta’s education system is famously unforgiving. With only one university and a bottlenecked sixth-form, a single grade can decide whether you stay on the rock or join the diaspora. “We speak four languages but still define ourselves by a percentage,” says Prof. Josanne Peregin, who teaches sociology at Junior College. “The meme externalised that pressure so we could laugh at it instead of drowning.”

Local businesses quickly cottoned on. Pastizzi Café in Msida started stamping “A” on its diamond-shaped pastries; the proceeds from 9-cent letter-shaped pastizzi financed free revision classes in the café’s back room. Taxi drivers hung green-and-white cardboard A’s from rear-view mirrors – a nod both to the slogan and to the classic Maltese “A” licence plate. Even the Archdiocese got involved: MUSEUM centres kept doors open 24/7 during May exam session, volunteers handing out ħobż biż-żejt at 3 a.m. to night-crammers. “We called it ‘Holy A,’” chuckles volunteer coordinator Fr. Rene’ Sciberras. “Prayer, protein, past papers.”

The cultural layer runs deeper. Malta’s festa season overlaps with exam season; village bands now break into a jaunty march titled “Let’s Get an A” between the Ave Maria and the confetti shower. In Gozo, the Nadur parish priest replaced the traditional sermon on the Good Shepherd with a tongue-in-cheek homily about the Lost Grade. “Christ left the 99 to find the one missing mark,” he told giggling students, who promptly uploaded the clip to TikTok with halo emojis.

But the real impact is measurable. The Ministry of Education quietly confirms a 7 % rise in MATSEC A and A* grades this summer, the sharpest jump since 2004. More tellingly, mental-health NGO Richmond Foundation recorded a 22 % drop in hotline calls related to academic stress during the May-June period. “Humour created peer support,” explains psychologist Steve Libreri. “Instead of suffering alone, students formed study circles in karozzini, on Gozo Channel decks, even in the Ħaġar Qim visitor centre because it had free air-con.”

Not everyone is amused. Older lecturers complain the meme encourages “minimum-effort entitlement.” One anonymous professor marked an exam script where a student doodled “Let’s get an A” instead of answering the final statistics question. Yet the same faculty now prints the slogan on departmental mugs after noticing attendance at supplementary lectures hit record highs. “If you can’t beat the meme, join the meme,” shrugs the professor.

As freshers collect their timetables this October, the buzzword is evolving. “Let’s keep the A” banners hang beneath festa arches, urging students not just to ace October resits but to safeguard Malta’s new-found solidarity. Lea Saliba, now a reluctant micro-celebrity, has trademarked the phrase and channels royalties to a scholarship fund for students who commute from Gozo. “We turned a panic attack into a passport for someone else,” she says, adjusting the oversized sunglasses that half the island now wears as an unofficial “A”-team uniform.

Whether the trend survives next academic year is anyone’s guess. Maltese crazes flare like petards at a village feast – loud, bright, then gone. But something feels different this time. The slogan has become shorthand for believing the island is small enough to carry every student across the finish line. So the next time you hear a honking Peugeot 108 at the Msida traffic lights and see a green cardboard A wobbling in the wind, remember: it’s not just a grade. It’s Malta telling itself we’re all in the same cramped classroom, and we’re going to pass together.