Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and Economy Minister Silvio Schembri today announced a new scheme for foreign students who choose to study English in Malta.

Launching the scheme in a press conference, Bartolo said that like every person and business in Malta, English language schools had to face serious challenges. Through this incentive, Bartolo said that while promoting the English school programme in Malta, more money is being given directly to local business.

“The main objective of this incentive is to give more money in the pockets of people in a more direct way”

The way the vouchers for English students will work is as follows; for every night that an English language student spends in Malta, he or she will receive a 10€ voucher. These vouchers can only be given to a student if they spend a minimum of 15 nights up to a maximum of 30 nights.

This scheme is part of a €580 million investment which includes the government vouchers and wage supplements.

Schembri spoke about the difficult times which Malta went through during the pandemic. “We could have easily taken the easy way out and washed our hands from the responsibility of the effects of the pandemic, but if we had done that, the Maltese population would have suffered greatly”.

“Our main objective has always been to safeguard the jobs of our workers,” Schembri said while explaining that English language students are responsible for 30% of our economic turnover.

“These vouchers are there to continue to help the businesses which had to close due to the pandemic” and he added that the scheme was achievable through the synergy between the various ministries, MTA and Mimcol.

Schembri said that Mimcol created a platform for the government to be more efficient than ever when it comes to the process of announcing measures and incentives and making them available for the public to benefit from.

The student vouchers are yellow in colour and they could be used in over 4,700 businesses across Malta. Maltese business who would be accepting these vouchers will use the same systems in place with the red government vouchers available for Maltese citizens.

Bartolo then explained how the process would work; the MTA would have the information of the students attending English learning schools in Malta and they would then pass on the vouchers to the schools who would verify the validity of the student and their right to the vouchers.