Gozo has a higher rate of graduates than Malta but a falling primary school student population, figures out yesterday show.

In 2014, the ratio of Gozitan graduates from the University of Malta was 10.4 per 1,000 population, as opposed to 8.2 for Malta.

A similar trend was evident among graduates from Mcast where the ratio for Gozitan students stood at 7.2 against 6.1 for Maltese students.

The figures form part of a publication released by the National Statistics Office focusing on Gozo.

Of significance is the drop in the primary school population to 5,989 students in the 2014/2015 scholastic year when compared to three years earlier.

Gozo has a slightly higher elderly population than Malta with 27 per cent aged 60 and over. The equivalent figure for Malta is 25 per cent.

There were 173 marriages in Gozo in 2013 of which 22 per cent were civil. But the sister island registered an 11 per cent decline in marriages (religious and civil) between 2013 and 2009. In contrast, Malta saw an equivalent increase in marriages.

In economic terms Gozo’s share of the GDP stood at five per cent in 2013 with internal tourism playing a major role. Last year, almost a million people visited Gozo but only 16 per cent were tourists. The rest were Maltese. Of the tourists who stopped in Gozo, 40 per cent used a low cost airline to travel to Malta.