The rate of early school-leavers and poor basic skills proficiency is hindering long-term improvement in Malta’s education and training systems, the European Commission has said.

“Skill levels in the workforce will not improve in the long term without addressing some bottlenecks in the education and training system,” the Commission report stated.

While noting that government expenditure on education was well above the EU average, the early school-leaving rate was still second highest. At 20.4 per cent, last year’s rate was a far cry from the Europe 2020 target of 10 per cent, it stated.

The report also highlighted the problem with basic skills attainment, saying that 15-year-old students who had participated in the OECD Programme for International Students Assessment in 2009 had underperformed in the tests. Their results, the report showed, were among the worst in the EU.

The results were among the worst in Europe

To improve this and further reduce early school-leaving, the Commission highlighted the importance of professional development of staff to promote student-centred learning.

“Lasting commitment in the coming years will be key, as measures to improve quality of teaching necessarily require a long-term policy perspective.

“The fact that the teaching force is quite young may facilitate the task.”

While the employment rate of recent tertiary graduates is the highest in the EU, the tertiary education attainment rate of people who are aged 30 to 34 is among the lowest in the EU.

Last year, this stood at 26.4 per cent, well below the Europe 2020 target of 33 per cent.

The report also highlights the problem of demand for highly skilled people exceeding supply, mainly in the healthcare, finance and IT sectors.

“The supply of skills has not yet fully adjusted to the labour market’s requirement, the report stated.

“Bottlenecks have been identified across the entire skills spectrum,” the Commission concluded.