The government’s “substantial investment” in the quality of education across the country must result in a further reduction in the number of early school leavers, Education Minister Justyne Caruana said today.

Caruana noted the importance of building strong foundations for childhood learning and care amongst children between the ages of 0 to 7, to nurture the unique rate of brain development in children in this age cohort.

She stated that though per capita, Malta is investing the most in its education sector, this sector must become more “flexible and open to change” and move away from a “one size fits all approach”.

Other strategies discussed this morning in a conference on the future of the education system were a greater focus on literacy, accessibility, inclusive learning, lifelong learning, as well as further developments for MCAST.

The 2020 Eurostat statistics for Early School Leaving (ESL) show that Malta has the highest number of ESL in the EU, that of 16.7%. Next in line are Spain and Romania, with Cyprus having the lowest amount of ESL (2.2%).

The European ESL statistics refers to those students between the ages of 18 and 24 who have left compulsory schooling and who do not have at least 5 SEC passes grade 1 to grade 7 and who are not in education or training.

Seeing as Malta’s legal school leaving age is that of 16 years, Malta’s National Statistics Office (NSO) has been measuring its own ESL records to include the age group of those 16 and over.

Malta’s 2020 recalculated statistics for ESL by NSO is that of 12.6%.

Nonetheless, Malta has not managed to reach the EU 2020 target to reduce the percentage of ESL to 10%.