The complaints are varied and come from all sectors.

Recently, Swieqi residents complained about the damage inflicted on their cars by foreign students when several side mirrors were ripped off cars parked in Swieqi and Sidra streets. Other cars were scratched, dented and walked on.

The residents also complained about the noise some foreign students make in the early hours of the morning, vandalism to public property and the littering of streets with bottles and rubbish.

Many other stories about foreign students circulate – students who go to a restaurant and leave without paying the bill, steal things from restaurants, or use doorsteps as a public toilet.

Female students at an English language school actually threw their fouled sanitary items out of the window into the schoolyard instead of using the bin and one student defecated in the hotel room’s plant pot and used the curtains instead of toilet paper.

Due to the fact that alcohol is so easily available to underage young people in Malta, many students as young as 14 can be seen staggering around Paceville dead drunk and messing up the road.

Shopkeepers have to be on the alert for students who have tight purses but fast hands.

Some host families stay up practically all night waiting for the students to return in the early hours of the morning.

Foreign students make up a very profitable sector of the Maltese economy. However, the large majority are extremely young and are away from home for the first time. Without supervision and control, they are apt to go wild, lose all sense of proportion and forget they are supposed to be civilised human beings.