One out of every 10 students who enrolled at post-secondary and tertiary institutions for the 2017 - 2018 academic year were foreign.

According to national data, there were 10,408 students at sixth forms and other post-secondary institutions - an increase of 2.1 percent over the previous academic year.

Most - 85 percent - were aged between 15 and 19 and the majority - again, 85 percent - enrolled at state-run institutions.

National Statistics Office data shows that vocational institutions accounted for half the enrolments. 

Meanwhile, 15,220 students enrolled for tertiary courses - an increase of 5.5 per cent over the 2016 - 2017 academic year.

Female students outnumbered men at almost all tertiary levels except for the ISCED level 8 (PhD equivalent).

Foreign students totalled 1,623 - or 10.7 percent of all tertiary level enrolments. This accounted to an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the previous academic year.

What was the most popular course?

The largest proportion of tertiary students (56.2 per cent) were engaged in courses at ISCED level 6 (Bachelor’s or equivalent), followed by enrolments at ISCED level 7 (Master’s or equivalent) with 29.3 per cent.

The ‘Education’ field was highly dominated by women (87.5 percent), while the
‘Information and Communication Technologies’ had a very high (84.8 per cent) male participation.

The most popular fields of study were ’Business, administration and law’ with 4,107 students or 27 percent of the total, and ‘Health and welfare’ with 3,147 students or 20.7 per cent of the total.

The least popular field of study at tertiary level was Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary', scoring an uptake of only 0.4 percent.