Over the past days, thousands of children and young adults have returned to school, starting another scholastic journey towards a bright future. I wish all of Malta's students the very best in their academic endeavours for the months to come.

We have said it time and time again and, thankfully, in Malta we have a wide consensus on education being the only real key to improving one's life. We have come a long way from when education was the privilege of the few. Today, the University of Malta, together with other educational institutions such as MCAST and many other private educational bodies, welcome thousands of students reading for an infinity of courses offering unprecedented opportunities.

However, despite all the efforts, we seem to still be trailing behind the EU average in terms of level of education. In fact, according to Eurostat, 40.8% of the population has obtained less than upper secondary education. The percentage of the Maltese population who successfully attended upper secondary and post-secondary (but not tertiary) education, according to the EU agency findings, which were published earlier this year, stands at 31.1%. Only 28.1% of the Maltese are considered highly educated having attended tertiary education.

This data gives us some food for thought. As we said we have come a long way, and that is laudable, and can be attributed to the continued efforts of various administrations that built on the good of the previous. However, it appears that we have reached an impasse. From my observation, this is evident from the fact that industry is struggling to identify and employ key human resources in an ever-growing economy, often having to resort to the wider international pond for their specific needs.

This is nothing short of a pity, and a missed opportunity. Education goes hand in hand with the development of the country's economy - they both take a deal of creativity in strategy which perhaps has been lacking lately. In the same way that we are struggling to create new economic sectors that can create new and better jobs, relying on our 'greatest hits', likewise, we seem to lack the vision to educate our young people, with the new skills of the future.

Obviously, I am not referring to the amazing work being done by our academics at University or MCAST, who I know do a great job at piquing the curiosity and guiding our young minds towards the future. My question is, should we wait for university to start introducing certain skills to our students? Shouldn't we start really early, as early as primary to start exposing our students to disciplines and abilities which will no doubt characterise their working environments a few years down the line?

It is very difficult to predict what the jobs of the future will be, but we can certainly make very educated guesses - excuse my pun!

One other peculiar statistic which comes out of the Eurostat survey is a rather acute difference in educational levels between women and men, standing at a not-so-negligible 7%. The great thing about it is that the difference here leans in favour of women, which in a rather patriarchal society, is a welcome finding! However, how many women do we see in top brass positions in Malta? How many women occupy C-suit posts?

It is evident that this welcome trend speaks positively of our young females and their drive to get a higher education, however, while we have made enormous leaps forward, I fear the famous glass ceiling in our corporate world is still very thick and solid.

I wish all students who have started a new scholastic adventure the very best! These are possibly the best years of your lives, make them matter!

Alexander Mangion is Deputy Mayor of Attard