Agatha Barbara, Malta’s first female President

On 11 March 1923, Agatha Barbara was born in Żabbar, the eldest daughter and second of nine children. Her rise was not from some elite or aristocratic background. She came from a large working family, was educated in state schools, and started out as a teacher during the Second World War. From that starting point, she would go on to become one of the most important figures in post-war Maltese politics.

She entered politics in 1946 when she joined the Malta Labour Party. Malta was on the edge of a major constitutional shift, and the 1947 election was the first held after women obtained the right to vote and stand for office. Barbara did not just benefit from that change; she embodied it. She won a seat immediately and became the first woman ever elected to the Maltese Parliament. For years after that, Parliament remained overwhelmingly male, and for much of her career she was operating in a male-dominated political world.

In 1955 she became Malta’s first female minister when she was appointed Minister of Education and Culture. She then pushed through one of the most important social reforms in modern Malta: compulsory and free full-time education up to age 14. To make that real, not just theoretical, she oversaw the construction or major expansion of 44 schools, the recruitment and training of hundreds of teachers, free books, free school transport, and the opening of special schools for children with disabilities. She also moved to end the discrimination that had kept subjects like science out of girls’ education.

Barbara was not simply a reforming minister in an office. She was directly involved in Labour’s anti-colonial struggle, took part in the 1958 protests against British rule, and was sentenced to prison afterwards. In the years that followed, she travelled abroad and lobbied for Maltese independence, including at the United Nations. So when people remember her only as a ceremonial head of state, they miss a big part of the story: she was shaped by confrontation, agitation and political risk, not just by titles.

When Labour returned to power in 1971, Agatha Barbara again took charge of education and pushed further reforms in Malta, including raising the school-leaving age to 16, expanding technical and trade education, and removing some barriers to university access. Then, as Minister of Labour, Social Services and Culture, she helped introduce reforms such as equal pay measures, paid pregnancy leave, the 40-hour five-day week, unemployment benefits, children’s allowances and pension improvements. It is undeniable that she had a direct hand in reshaping education, labour protections and welfare in modern Malta.

The presidency made history because she was the first woman to hold the office, but one could argue that her best work was done in the prior decades.