Maltese spend fewest years in school but progress made

Finnish children remain in school four years more than the Maltese, according to EU figures.

The two nationalities are at opposite ends of the table showing the average number of years of schooling in EU countries. The Finns are at the top, with over 20 years, and the Maltese – together with the Bulgarians and the Cypriots – come in last at just under 16 years of schooling.

Yet, Malta is deemed to have made significant progress over the past decade. In 2000, the average number of years spent in school stood at 14, two years lower than in 2009 when the latest data was gathered.

“Although Malta still has one of the lowest schooling-years expec­tancy, the island is catching up fast with the rest of the EU as more and more students are carrying on with their education after compulsory education,” an EU official said. “If Malta continues with this trend, it should have no problem in coming in line with the EU’s average in a few years’ time.”

Eurostat’s report, entitled Trends In European Education In The Last Decade, puts Malta in a rosier position when it comes to other aspects of education. For example, in 2009 it had the lowest student/teacher ratio in primary education across the 27 member states, with 9.4 students for every teacher, much lower than the EU average of 14.

However, this ratio is being contested by the teachers’ union, the MUT. It said that “although mathematically speaking the figures published by the European Commission are not in dispute, they fail to take into account the increased number of teachers at primary level that have been absorbed in the several new services being offered by the Directorate Student Services and by the Directorate of the Curriculum Management and elearning”.

According to the MUT this means that in most cases class sizes remained unchanged as there are many teachers who do not have a fixed class-related job but have been included in these statistics.

Eurostat’s statistics also confirm that, throughout the EU, the teaching profession is a female domain although to a lesser extent in Malta. The largest proportion of female teachers on the island is at primary level, where, in 2009, nearly nine in 10 were women, slightly higher than the average 86 per cent in the other member states.

However, the participation of women teachers falls as the teaching level moves up. At secondary level, their number is down to 66 per cent (69 per cent in the EU) and falls to 40 per cent (61 per cent in the EU) at upper secondary level.

On the other hand, statistics show that, all over the EU, including in Malta, more females than males pursue a University education. In the last decade, the number of female graduates in what in the past were considered to be “male subjects”, such as maths, sciences and technology, rose significantly. In 2009, nearly 31 per cent of all Malta University graduates in these subjects were women, up 130 per cent over 2000