Since its founding in 2017, the Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning (3CL) Foundation in Malta has worked to bridge the Commonwealth and the European Union in promoting ethical and transformative uses of educational technology. Malta’s status as one of the 33 Small States in the Commonwealth, combined with its compact geography and dense population, makes it a unique testbed for innovative approaches to digital education.
3CL functions as a LearnTech hub where ideas, research, and policy converge to explore how technology can empower learners rather than exploit them. The foundation has demonstrated that small states, with their agility and close-knit communities, can pilot and refine educational models that later gain global relevance. Malta’s dual membership in the EU and the Commonwealth has allowed 3CL to collaborate across regions, scaling initiatives such as blockchain-based self-sovereign credentials, research on digital literacy and resilience to misinformation, and studies on how generative AI affects multigenerational workplaces. These efforts reflect 3CL’s belief that small states are pivotal contributors to global EdTech and open learning ecosystems.
Professor Godfrey Baldacchino, 3CL’s Chair, emphasizes that citizens face challenges from apathy, cynicism, illiteracy, and monopoly power, but small states can navigate these challenges uniquely. In Malta and other Small States, politics is intimate, voter engagement is high, expertise must be adaptable, and community connections are close, enabling rapid experimentation and learning. This agility allows these nations to model inclusive, participatory, and trustworthy approaches to connected learning that larger countries often struggle to implement due to bureaucracy.
The 3CL Strategic Plan embodies this collaborative and innovative spirit. It promotes interoperable learning systems, supports trustworthy digital identities, and advances digital literacy as a civic right. The foundation continues to study how emerging technologies—like AI, blockchain, and open platforms—reshape knowledge access, power dynamics, and societal relationships across generations and geographies.
Looking forward, 3CL aims to deepen collaboration with the Commonwealth of Learning and its partners across the Commonwealth and Europe. By leveraging lessons from Malta and other small states, the foundation seeks to demonstrate how agile, connected, and human-centred approaches to digital learning can transform education systems at any scale, ensuring that openness, ethics, and transformative potential remain central to the future of learning.
