Some 670 students who failed the Sec exams have applied to attend free tuition in summer offered by the government, in preparation for the resits in September.

The lessons, spread over six hours a week are being offered in Maths, English, Maltese and Physics and are part of the Youth Guarantee initiative.

Applications close on Wednesday.

Up to today, 250 had applied for Maltese language lessons, 342 English, 418 Maths and 220 in Physics, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said.

He said the number of students who failed or did not turn up for their English exam was of 1,936, in Maths 2,314, Physics 1,376 and Maltese 1,526.

There were another 353 students who did not even apply for the SEC exams.

Some 4,500 students sat for the exams in each subject.

Mr Bartolo said that the number of applicants for these free revision lessons so far represented about a third of those who had failed. He acknowledged that part of the problem was the educational setup in Malta which was only catering for children with a particular kind of ability.

Mr Bartolo expressed his concern at the high number of failures in Maths with only some 40 per cent obtaining the pass mark.

As for the proposal to raise the school leaving age to 18, he said that this warranted a thorough discussion. He said that the biggest problem was to address those aged 17 and 18.