The rate of Malta’s young people leaving school early is once again among the highest in Europe, data issued by the EU statistics office shows, as the struggle to halve this figure by 2020 continues.

Last year, 19.8 per cent of the population aged between 18 and 24 left school with a level of education that was no higher than that of students at lower secondary level, the Eurostat said. Spain was the only other European country to have an early school-leaving rate which was higher than that in Malta, at 20 per cent.

While there were some minor improvements from previous years compared to last year – 20.4 per cent in 2014 and 20.5 per cent in 2013 – Malta is still far from achieving its 2020 target of a school-leaving rate of 10 per cent, the data showed.

The Europe 2020 target is to reduce the rates of early school leaving in the EU to below 10 per cent by 2020.

According to the Eurostat data, men were more likely to leave school before the age of 24, with 22.9 per cent of those aged between 18 and 24 not being in school or receiving any training, up from 22.3 per cent theprevious year.

Meanwhile, fewer women were reported to have left school early, the data showed, with the figure having gone down to 16.6 per cent from 18.3 in 2014.

Teachers’ Union president Kevin Bonello said that such figures confirm the MUT’s belief that the current education system is inflexible and promotes an ineffective “one-size-fits-all” approach.

He said this system was at the root of the problem, as many young adults felt disheartened about pursuing their studies. “Any serious educational reform which is in the pipeline must definitely include em-powerment to schools and educators to be able to be flexible with the student cohort they are educating,” Mr Bonello said.

The union was once again reiterating its appeal to the authorities involved to listen to educators, he said, adding that they have for a number of years said that the current approaches were failing.

Questions sent to the Education Ministry on the latest figures had not been answered by the time of writing.