In its role as the regulator of financial services in Malta, the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) is providing training for guidance teachers so that they will be in a better position to assist schoolchildren in choosing a career.

The authority took the initiative because new companies in Malta’s consistently developing financial sector will require employees with enhanced skills.

In line with its strategic plan for the period 2007 to 2009, the authority is aiming to be more proactive in ensuring that up-to-date information is made available to guidance teachers within government and private schools so they can assist students and their parents in determining the way forward both in their educational pathway and the careers they choose.

As a first initiative to implement this strategy, the MFSA, in collaboration with the Finance and Education Ministries is organising two half-day seminars during which different groups of guidance teachers will attend presentations by MFSA chairman, Prof. Joseph V. Bannister, representatives of the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology and the Malta International Training Centre in which the MFSA is actively involved.

Participants will be also be made aware of MFSA’s role in promoting education and training for the financial services sector.

The importance of this initiative was underlined by Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech and Education Minister Louis Galea who addressed participants.

Minister Galea praised the MFSA for proactively seeking to train the people who are at the forefront of career guidance. He said students start choosing their career paths at a very early age and these are usually influenced by several factors including the family and social background.

He said that unfortunately, some students may be preconditioned and therefore guidance teachers play a very important role in helping students decide or at least steer towards a particular career or an educational pathway which would eventually lead to the career they seek.

Minister Galea said that today’s workplace is becoming one which greatly depends on continuous education and training and therefore career guidance needs to evolve into a life-long process whereby students and workers constantly seek guidance on what educational and training opportunities they may avail themselves of, as well as obtain information on how the economy is evolving and what employment opportunities there might be in the future.

Dr Galea said that guidance teachers were receiving the necessary training not only to be better aware of what is available but also to ensure gender equality. Minister Galea said that both male and female students need to be challenged to consider all types of career paths and not to be limited by stereotypes.

Minister Galea said that there is an important time-lag between the time when students start choosing their career through the subjects they choose and the time when they enter the labour market.

Dr Galea said that few would have predicted the growth in the pharmaceutical and aviation servicing sectors a few years ago but yet these are now growing at a fast rate.

Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech said that when the MFSA was launching its strategic plan for the following three years, he had remarked that the financial services sector in Malta is built on a sound and healthy background.

Having said that, the country is facing a situation whereby this sector is growing at a pace which is much larger when compared with the rate by which the educational system is preparing employees to work in this sector.

Over the past three years, the financial services sector has grown by 30 per cent annually and is now the third largest sector in the Maltese economy following tourism and manufacturing. Mr Fenech said that at this rate of growth, it was expected that the financial services sector could become even more predominant.