Education Minister Dolores Cristina expressed confidence this evening that Malta will meet and surpass the EU2020 targets, which a report published by Brussels yesterday was sceptical about.
Addressing a news conference this afternoon the minister said that one of the targets was for there not to be more than 29 per cent of students who were early school leavers. In 2001, 54 per cent of students in Malta were early school leavers, (those aged between 18 and 24 who do not continue studying), the figure in 2010 stood at 36.8 per cent and figures for last year showed it was expected to drop to 34 per cent.
One of the main problems, Mrs Cristina said, was to catch up with the increase in the number of students since this required investment, something the PN government was committed to continue doing.
She said that one of the EU requirements was to increase the participation of students at tertiary level.
The government was currently working on crucial reforms to meet this target. These reforms ranged from providing individual assistance to young children with learning difficulties, introducing vocational training and facilitating the transition from primary to secondary education. The reform, Mrs Cristina said, was a gradual one and results would be seen in a few years.
She noted that this year the government would invest more than €3 million in scholarships.
On the gender gap, the minister said the government was addressing this and the first schools that were built were for boys in localities that needed support.
A mixed gender school was not on the cards at the moment. The closest thing to it was that because of the fact that the boys and girls secondary schools of Sta Clara College had dropping populations and the boys' schools did not have good sports facilities, it had been considered to build the boys' school next to the Pembroke girls' one so that the two schools would be able to share facilities.
As for the sizes of schools, Mrs Cristina said that although it was ideal to have small schools, the number of students in Maltese classes were lower than agreed upon with the Malta Union of Teachers.
Moreover, the government counteracted for large number of students in a college by increasing the number of assistant heads.
The minister also expressed disappointment that Labour would be voting against the upcoming Education Bill, even though they agreed with its objectives.