Malta’s denial of visas could have a devastating impact on the English language teaching industry for the next five or six years, the CEO of the Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations in Malta (Feltom) said.

In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Jessica Rees-Jones was referring to recent articles detailing how Malta had rejected over 12,000 visas in 2023. This accounted for 36.81% of all visa requests that year, which was the highest rate of rejection in the Schengen area, where the average rejection rate was 16.96%.

While this issue may not be specific to the ELT industry only, Rees-Jones said that due to the nature of the industry, it often falls in between tourism and education, with the vast majority of foreign students coming to Malta on a 90-day visa in order to attend their school of choice. She said that the impact of this visa issue has the potential to be devastating on the ELT industry in Malta, not just short-term for this summer, but for years to come.

The Feltom CEO recalled how member schools of the organisation have come forward expressing how the rampant denial of visas has negatively impacted them, and how there are tangible losses resulting from the situation.

One such school reported that the denial of visas of prospective students added up to a loss of €100,000 or 300 student weeks, Rees-Jones said. Other schools reported losing out on prospective students which would have amounted to approximately €100,000, €40,000 and €19,000 respectively; all those numbers being from different schools. One school reported that it had lost out on over 900 student weeks in 2023, while losing out on nearly 500 student weeks so far this year.

The 78,000 ELT students who came over in 2023 accounted for €155m in revenue. Rees-Jones added that ELT students in that year accounted for 9.4% of tourist guest nights and that student expenditure made up 5.8% of total tourist expenditure. She added that there are also over a 1,000 teachers and staff whose livelihoods are impacted by reduced student numbers.

The Feltom annual report is an ELT barometer conducted by Deloitte. The most recent edition, published in July 2024, found that student arrivals had declined by 6.8% in the first four months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

With those numbers in mind, she argued that Malta’s visa issue is now throttling the industry’s lifeblood, which has the potential to grow further but is now being hampered by the reputational damage that Malta is at risk of experiencing if this issue is not remedied quickly and effectively. “Even if we fix it next year, people are still going to have heard of the difficulties and make alternative plans to study in other countries instead of Malta. The effect is short-, medium- and long-term.”

Rees-Jones said that the current situation with visas being rejected offers no upside or benefit to anyone, and the lack of communication on the part of the government means that the country faces significant reputational damage, namely regarding the ELT sector and the tourism market as a whole.

She said that the industry’s biggest problem with the visa issue is regarding the reasons as to how and why the denial rate is so high in Malta. When asked if Feltom is aware as to why prospective students are having their visas denied, she said that the organisation has not received any such information from the government or its agency Identità, despite having conducted frequent meetings.

“Unfortunately we don’t know. If we knew why, we would all be in a much better position because then we could communicate that to our member schools, the ELT sector, and to the agencies.”

The highest level of rejections, she detailed, is from Turkey, though no reason has been explained to Feltom as to why this is the case. “The number of rejections is enormously high in Malta compared to countries like Italy and France, and we don’t know why.” She remarked that it is hard to believe that Turkish students, for example, are applying to come to Malta with incomplete or incorrect documents but are then applying to Italy and France properly.

In addition to Turkey, she said that some of the countries where prospective students are reporting notable refusal rates include Brazil, Japan and Colombia, with Colombian students contributing the most student weeks and having the longest average length of stay.

“We can’t justify it to our agents, and we can’t justify it to our schools. These schools are facing a very bleak potential future, with agents and students choosing to go somewhere else. This would impact tourism, education, and the quality of what Malta offers. This isn’t rocket science, all countries have visa issues, and I think Malta in particular has challenges around process and communication."

Speaking out on the issue is a double-edged sword for Feltom, the organisation’s CEO remarked. She continued that the organisation has to be careful in raising this issue because there are already agents saying that it is becoming too hard to bring students to Malta when there are other options like Cyprus and Ireland, which also offer strong ELT industries. “This is very real, and that’s the impact of the visas,” she commented.

On the point of communication, Rees-Jones said that the industry would benefit enormously from having a simple sheet, which outlines the processes and the costs associated with the typical visa process for these prospective students. If the ELT sector had that, it would not be stumbling around in the dark trying to make sense of the situation. She appealed to Identità to improve communication or transparency in this regard, as such a situation affects thousands of people’s lives.

Furthermore, Rees-Jones said that Feltom continues to offer full support in working with Identità and all stakeholders in order to get clear and simple guidelines on the process. She said that Identità has updated its application system twice this year, but there are no straightforward guidelines and communication regarding the new processes. She continued that this is causing great confusion which could be solved with clear and simple guidelines, and added that Feltom has frequently offered to cooperate in creating such a document to be shared with the ELT sector, but the offer has as yet not been taken up.

She said that of the over 78,000 people that come to Malta a year to study, 51% of them on average originate from non-Schengen regions, “so 35,000 people’s lives are being destroyed” because after going through the process of making all the necessary preparations for travel, accommodation and schooling, they then get their visas rejected and have to renege on all their plans. She acknowledged that Identità is under no obligation to share its guidelines or process with the industry, but made her argument as to why it would be beneficial overall if it did so.

The Malta Independent on Sunday asked the CEO of Feltom if this additional visa issue is leading to an unprecedented situation for the local ELT industry, and posed the question as to whether there have ever been serious concerns with visas being denied at a significant level beforehand.

She replied that in her experience, this situation is unprecedented. She also mentioned that there is currently a discussion about implementing additional health screenings for certain countries, some of which are among those whose nationals frequently visit Malta. Rees-Jones said that Feltom will always support good governance and responsible citizenry. Still, she emphasised that the impact on the industry is real, and that the metrics of the annual report show the benefit the industry provides to Malta’s tourism industry, as well as the economy and the quality of teaching in the country.

She said that while the industry is looking to grow and promote Malta as an island of quality teaching and more, there is a significant challenge being presented, and a lot of it has to do with process and communication. “We’re not clear on the process and it’s not been communicated.”

Feltom’s CEO concluded by saying that the organisation is urgently requesting to work on solutions for this issue with all stakeholders, as the situation is having a real impact and urgent solutions are needed now.