By December 2025, 98% of the third country nationals working in the tourism sector had a skills pass, the CEO of the Institute of Tourism Studies said. "Those who did not pass had to leave, and others replaced them."

In an interview with this media house, Fenech said there was a shift since the skills pass was introduced, in terms of pass rate. "The law came into effect in May 2024. In the beginning, we saw that the percentage of failures was high, around 50%. As time passed, the number of applicants increased, but we also saw a decrease in the percentage of failures. The benchmark had not been changed, and the system is automated, so there is no subjectivity by an assessor. The main reason for the increase in pass rate, is that the word began to spread, and people who did not have the required skills stopped applying."

He said that this was the aim of the skills pass, "for people who come to Malta to meet, at least, the minimum standards in terms of skills that we want as a country."

The pass rate has now stabilised at around 75%, he said. 

"I say the minimum standards because the level might not necessarily be good enough for all businesses. For example a Micheline Star restaurant and a village Maltese food restaurant require a different level of skills from their staff. So we benchmark the minimum, and then its up to the businesses if they want higher standards."

Describing the test to achieve the pass, he said that questions are changed all the time as otherwise there would be a risk on answers being shared. "But the level remains the same. The system has a big database of questions."

The system also has the ability to raise the baseline should a decision in the future be taken to do so, he added, but added that there are no discussions taking place to do that.

Maltese people working in the tourism sector

Asked what he thinks holds Maltese back from working in the sector, Fenech said that it is more a question about overall numbers. "Ten years ago we had fewer Maltese students studying at ITS than we have now. But because the tourism sector grew so much, although we have more Maltese, they aren't as visible because the overall number of workers skyrocketed."

"I was an ITS student in 1992. At the time, the sector was mainly run by foreigners, and the Maltese were the frontliners. Today this has flipped. The sector is mostly run by Maltese, mostly ITS alumni, and the frontliners are foreign workers."

He said that most ITS students today go straight into managerial positions after graduating. While congratulating them, he said he holds a slightly controversial opinion about this, explaining that he believes it important for people to climb the ladder before achieving high positions. "If they don't, they wouldn't have had that experience or the opportunity to make and learn from mistakes. If you make mistakes at higher levels rather than having learnt from them earlier, the problems can be bigger."

Turning to collaboration between ITS and hospitality sector operators, Fenech explained that all the curricula are updated, at minimum, every five years. "We involve players from the industry, conduct focus groups and show them what we are doing, while listening to their way of thinking, what they believe is relevant and what is no longer relevant. This is how we mould our curricula, and this is very important. We don't want to teach our students just about the situation today, but also about how things might be done tomorrow."

The first part of the interview was carried yesterday