Elephant & Cross: The Valletta Workshop Teaching Maltese Teens Life over Exams

**Elephant & Cross: Making education work for real life**

On a quiet street in Valletta, just a stone’s throw from the bustling Merchant’s Street, a small but ambitious educational initiative is quietly reshaping how Maltese students relate to the world beyond textbooks. Elephant & Cross, a non-formal learning hub founded in 2021 by educators Rebecca Micallef and Andre’ Camilleri, is not your typical tuition centre. It’s a place where 14- to 25-year-olds trade rote memorisation for carpentry, fermentation, podcasting and even basic plumbing—skills that, until recently, were passed down in Maltese garages and village kitchens rather than classrooms.

“We kept meeting teenagers who could solve quadratic equations but couldn’t change a tap washer,” Micallef laughs, adjusting her safety goggles between wood-work demonstrations. “Meanwhile employers tell us they need people who can think with their hands, not just their heads.”

The name Elephant & Cross is itself a nod to Maltese heritage: the elephant symbolises memory and wisdom, while the cross references both the Knights’ eight-pointed emblem and the village crossroads where communities once gathered. In a country where 53% of 15-year-olds say school feels “unrelated to future life” (EU PISA 2022), the founders wanted a space that felt like the modern equivalent of those crossroads—equal parts workshop, laboratory and living room.

Classes run after-hours in a converted 18th-century townhouse rented from the Archdiocese at a peppercorn rate. Students sign up via Instagram for 4-week “sprints” taught by local artisans: Gozitan cheesemaker Marlene Portelli walks them through microbial cultures; DJ and producer Cyprian Cassar deconstructs beat-making on Ableton; retired Enemalta technician Raymond Zahra shows how to rewire a three-pin plug without electrocuting yourself. Each sprint ends with a public showcase—last month’s “Repair Café” in Strait Street saw 200 people bring broken toasters and wobbly chairs for free fixes, turning the capital into an open-air classroom.

Ministry data shows 38% of Maltese early-school-leavers cite “useless subjects” as their main grievance. Elephant & Cross doesn’t replace formal schooling; instead it offers “micro-credentials” recognised by MCAST and the Malta Chamber of SMEs, nudging academic and vocational tracks closer together. “We’re not anti-exam,” Camilleri insists. “We’re pro-relevance. If a student can calculate the load-bearing weight of a Mdina wooden beam, they’ve applied trigonometry in a context that matters.”

Funding comes from a hybrid model: 40% EU ESF grants, 30% corporate CSR (Bank of Valletta recently sponsored a female-only electronics cohort), 30% paid corporate team-building sessions where lawyers and accountants sand chopping boards alongside teens, the fees cross-subsidising scholarships. “Corporate Malta is desperate for authentic ESG stories,” notes Micallef. “Spending a morning learning dovetail joints beats another beach clean-up selfie.”

Community impact is already visible. In Qormi, 17-year-old Kylie Muscat used her new-found welding skills to help her father retrofit vintage buses for wedding charters, doubling the family income. In Għaxaq, a collective of six ex-Elephant students launched “Ferment-Us”, selling ġbejniet-flavoured kimchi to three Valletta restaurants. “We’re literally flavouring the island,” grins 19-year-old Sven Pace, juggling jars of turmeric-pickled ġbejniet. Meanwhile, educators report that participants return to regular school with sharper attendance and higher self-esteem, a phenomenon University of Malta researchers are tracking for a 2025 study on “non-formal spill-over”.

Not everyone is convinced. Some parents worry the project legitimises dropping out; one headmaster accused the hub of “academic vandalism”. Yet even sceptics acknowledge the timing: Malta’s labour market faces a 7,000-shortfall in skilled trades by 2027, while the EU’s green transition demands retrofitters, not philosophers. “We need both brains and hands,” argues Education Minister Clifton Grima, who quietly visited a carpentry sprint last March. “Initiatives like Elephant & Cross remind us that dignity of labour is not a slogan—it’s a curriculum.”

As the afternoon light slants through the honey-coloured limestone, a gaggle of students huddles around a lathe, arguing over the best angle for a table leg. The smell of sawdust mingles with freshly brewed kafe’ tal-ħar. In this tiny corner of Valletta, education feels alive—not a pipeline to an exam, but a crossroads where curiosity meets craft. If Malta is to reinvent its economic model beyond tourism and iGaming, it could do worse than start here, one hand-made dovetail at a time.