A number of students will receive the arrears of stipends withheld since October in view of doubts on whether they were repeating their course, the Education Ministry said yesterday.

The students in question had started a course at MCAST but were never given a grant as there were doubts they were repeating the course.

Education Minister Louis Galea had asked the Students Maintenance Grants Board to examine every application from scratch: Where it was found that students were repeating the same course because they had failed in the previous year their stipend was withdrawn, according to the regulations, but not where this was not the case.

Having considered all the cases, the board accepted over 450 requests from students at MCAST, Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary and Junior College. They were now being informed about the decision and would be getting their arrears next month, Dr Galea said.

In this year's budget, the government has allocated over Lm8 million for maintenance grants, with Lm4 million for post-secondary level.

While there were only 10,000 post-secondary and tertiary students 10 years ago, the figure has doubled, Dr Galea said.

The number of students furthering their studies was continually increasing. At the moment, seven out of 10 continue to study after the age of 16 and many continue after 22. The population at MCAST has grown from 1,500 to over 4,000 full-time students and 5,000 part-timers.