The language sector has seen a decrease of approximately 16% teachers, falling from 1,225 teachers in 2017 to 1,028 teachers in 2018. The number of non-teaching staff also fell from 759 to 721 in the same time-span.

The statistics were presented during a press conference organized by the English Language Teaching (ELT) council & the Federation of English Language Teaching Organizations Malta (FELTOM) in collaboration with the National Statistics Office and Deloitte.

FELTOM stated that they will be implementing measures and launching a national campaign to help attract more persons to the profession.

In spite of the decrease in teachers working in the sector, the number of students following courses at a local specialized school in Malta remained, for the most part, the same, with a total of 87,112 students in 2018.

2017 saw 87,190 students come to Malta.

The majority of students (48.6%) came from Italy, Germany and France, followed by Russia (6.2%), and Poland, Austria, Brazil, Spain and Japan, who all stood above 4%.

English language students also accounted for 3.4% of the total inbound tourists visiting Malta in the year 2018, this included, for example, 18.6% of tourists from Russia, 15.3% of tourists from Japan, and 14.1% of tourists from Turkey.

With regards to accommodation, 27% resided with host families, 21.1% stayed in hotels (mainly three- and four-star ones (21%), and 17.7% collectively stayed in other accommodation such as residences, hostels and guesthouses.

Students also stay in Malta longer, on average, than traditional tourists. Approximately 2.5 weeks on average, a decrease from 2.8 weeks in 2017.

Demographics were split up 61% female, and 39% Malta, with the majority of students being 15 years of age and under (34%), followed by 16 to 17-year olds at 18%.