Early school leavers and unskilled youths will be the main focus of three government initiatives that will act as a safety net from unemployment in a €2.7 million EU project.
Through Youth Guarantee, the government will, in one initiative, offer revision classes to students who got a grade 6 or 7 in their O-level exams.
The classes will take place in the summer months, giving extra coaching in four subjects required for post-secondary studies: English, mathematics, physics and Maltese.
Nearly half of our unemployed youths are out there and we don’t know what they are doing
Students would then re-sit the exams in September, said Clyde Caruana, the chairman of Jobs +, a scheme to boost employment.
In a second, similar initiative, students at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology who fail their exams will be given extra coaching during the summer, again to do their resits in September.
“In this way, they won’t miss out on a year,” Mr Caruana said during a conference yesterday.
A third initiative will target secondary students who did not register for Sec exams. An extension to the Alternative Learning Programme, students will be encouraged to do an educational or vocational course so they will be able to take up a course at Mcast the following September.
An EU-wide project, Youth Guarantee tackles youth unemployment by ensuring that all young people under 25 – whether registered with employment services or not – get a job, apprenticeship, traineeship or continue studying within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed.
Locally, the project is expected to target around 2,000 young people aged up to 25 and its roll-out will start over the coming weeks.
Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said it was worrying that while 80 per cent of 17-year-olds continued studying, the figure dropped to 50 per cent for the same group when they were two years older.
Malta’s rate of youth unemployment is almost 14 per cent compared to the EU average of 22.7 per cent. Of these, 26 per cent were found to be single parents – mostly women – while 10 per cent were disabled and another 10 per cent had been registering with the Employment and Training Corporation as unemployed for less than six months.
Another 10 per cent said they had been registered as unemployed for more than six months.
Mr Caruana said the most worrying cohort was the remaining 44 per cent who were not working and not registered as unemployed.
“They say they are looking for a job but have not found anything – these are our biggest challenge,” Mr Caruana said. He queried whether these youths were either not motivated to register as unemployed or were working in the black economy.
“Half of the unemployed youths are in this category and we have to see what they are doing.”
Next year the government will launch an EU-funded project that will target members of this group individually.
“Nearly half of our unemployed youths are out there and we don’t know what they are doing.”
Closing the conference, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said Youth Guarantee would provide the foundation for youths who failed the system or were failed by it.
At least 35 per cent of unemployed young people were on social benefits and the country could not afford this on an economic and moral level, he said. Youth Guarantee would give these people a second chance.
Meanwhile, the Nationalist Party said that after a year of the Labour government, the number of unemployed youths had increased by 1,000 to 5,800.
During the election campaign, Dr Muscat had guaranteed that young people would be assured a job, training placements or education.
Not only has this promise not been fulfilled but there had been a staggering 20 per cent increase.
Hardly encouraging for young people, the party said.