Marica Xuereb, a student currently pursuing the ACCA course, received the highest score in her F9 Financial Management exam, coming first out of 15,822 candidates around the world.

She obtained a score of 93/100 in the examination, held last December. Ms Xuereb told The Malta Independent how she was both “very happy” and “very surprised at the result”, and that she initially found the subject difficult.

Minister for Education Evarist Bartolo today presented her with a gift at the Malta Institute of Accountants. “You are a role model because of your perseverance,” he said, explaining how he believes the “connection between effort and reward has been lost…and nowadays people expect to achieve a reward without much effort”.

Minister Bartolo added how instances such as these prove that “intelligence has nothing to do with grographical size,” following which he cited statistics which show that the Malta’s top 5% of individuals pursuing academics match with the global top 5%.

Photos Baskal Mallia

Mr Bartolo noted that since ‘accounts’ has been put as a subject in state schools again in the past few years, about 800 students have chosen it as a subject.

The president of the Malta Institute of Accountants, Franco Azzopardi, also congratulated Ms Xuereb for her achievement.