Malta has the highest employment rate for recent graduates in the European Union in 2017, a report by Eurostat shows.

A recent graduate is defined by the report as people aged 20-34, who are not in education and training, and who completed their education at most three years ago.  For the benefit of this study, the education level taken was that of upper-secondary, so as to include tertiary level education as well.

The rate of employment for this demographic in Malta stands at 94.5%, which is the highest across the whole of the EU, and is by far ahead of the EU average – which stands at 80.2%.  This is despite the fact that the rate is actually a slight decrease on the figure for the previous year, which stood at 96.6%.

Behind Malta, Germany has the second highest rate of employment for recent graduates at 91%, followed by the Netherlands and Czech Republic who each have a rate of 90%. At the other end of the spectrum, Greece has the lowest rate of employment for recent graduates at just 52%, whilst Italy does not fare well either in the study, with a rate of 55%. 

Out of the rest of the EU powerhouse countries, Spain’s rate has continued to increase up to the point that it now stands at 71.9%, a stark contrast to the 59.9% rate it had in 2013.  The United Kingdom also maintained an above average rate of employment for recent graduates, at 86.6%.  France meanwhile registered a very marginal increase on its previous figures, so that it now has a rate of 74.4%.

Meanwhile, the past weekend saw the publication of the much awaited MATSEC exam results in Malta, both at SEC level and at Matriculation level.

A total of 5145 students sat for their SEC exams, a slight increase on the 5,078 students who sat for the same exams in 2017.  Meanwhile, 3,805 students sat for their Matriculation exams, 214 less than the total number of students who sat for the same set of the exams in 2017.

The most startling figure out of all these results was the amount of failures in Systems of Knowledge, which is required for entry into the University of Malta.  The percentage of students failing in this subject in 2018 is almost double that of 2017.

Indeed, statistics published by MATSEC show that 637 out of the 2043 students who sat for the exam failed to pass the subject, which equates to 31%.  In the May session of 2017 meanwhile, 335 out of 2071 students failed SOK, giving a percentage of 16%.

Otherwise, marking patterns have remained largely the same across both SEC and Matriculation subjects. 

English was the most popular SEC level subject, with 4,117 students sitting for it, followed by Mathematics (4,065 students), Maltese (3,675 students) and Physics (2,987 students).  The pass rates for these subjects remained in similar territory when compared to the results of 2017; the English pass rate rose by 0.4%, the Mathematics pass rate rose by 1.5%, the Maltese pass rate rose by 1.1% whilst the Physics pass rate fell by 1.2%.  It was also a mixed bag in the other science subjects; similar to Physics, Environmental Studies registered a decrease in its pass rate of 1.4%, but Biology retained exactly the same pass rate – even though with 27.9% of the students failing, it still holds the highest rate of failure of all the main subjects – whilst Chemistry’s pass rate rose by 1.7%.

At Matriculation level meanwhile, English remained the most popular Advanced level subject with 749 students sitting for the exam.  It was followed by Biology (621 students), Maltese (548 students) and Pure Mathematics (490 students).  The passing rate of all these subjects improved in 2018 from the previous year, with increases of 1.7% in English, 0.7% in Maltese, 1.1% in Biology and 4.4% in Pure Mathematics.

Since Systems of Knowledge is a compulsory subject, that was by far the Intermediate level subject which the most students sat for.  It was followed in numbers by English (889 students), Psychology (811 students), Physics (545 students) and Pure Mathematics (528 students).  It is interesting to note that last year it was Psychology was the intermediate subject that most students sat for aside from Systems of Knowledge. It is also interesting to see that, contrary to the Advanced level subjects, there was a fall in the pass rates of each of the four subjects, with decreases of 0.5% in English, 0.7% in Psychology, 4.7% in Physics and 4% in Pure Mathematics.

The standout result out of all these statistics however remains the sharp increase in failures for the Systems of Knowledge, a subject which is compulsory for entry into the University of Malta.  Numerous students had raised concerns on social media about this, with a number stating that they had received a very high or even full mark in their project, which is worth 40% of the global mark, but then failed to pass the subject.  The syllabus of the subject states that for a pass to be received, the student must pass both the project and the written examination.

Clarification by MATSEC Support Unit regarding the Systems of Knowledge examination

In a statement, the MATSEC Examination Board said that the MATSEC Support Unit has received a number of complaints from candidates who failed the Systems of Knowledge examination held in the First 2018 session. "In practically all cases, the complaints came from candidates who obtained a good or very good mark in the project, which has a weighting of 40% of the global mark. They then reasoned that it was hard to believe that they did not acquire 'the few remaining marks' from the written examination to pass since they assumed that the pass mark was always less than 50%."

"Unfortunately, the candidates are working under a wrong impression of how Systems of Knowledge is assessed. The syllabus states that the criteria for a pass grade is that candidates need a pass in the written paper to obtain an overall pass grade and not a few remaining marks".

"A preliminary look at the statistics of marks obtained in the four questions that the candidates were required to answer indicates that candidates seem to be concentrating on studying only one or maybe two sections of the four sections of the syllabus and providing poor answers to the other two or three sections. The table below shows some typical results which confirm this observation. The marks of each section of the written paper are out of a maximum of 100."

Section A/100	Section B/100	Section C/100	Section D/100
44	3	26	56
68	5	20	41
21	46	10	58
36	57	35	12
55	17	25	56
16	80	20	29
64	18	20	46

"Furthermore, this year the examiners reported that the students' overall performance in the written paper was poor and, compared to previous years, a lower pass mark was set. In spite of this adjustment, there was a higher percentage of F grades than in recent years."