Enrollment in post-secondary and tertiary education has increased by 9%, according to new data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Wednesday. 

Students enrolled in post-secondary 10,114, in 2023, up from 9,610 in 2022, or an increase of 5.2%

Malte students outnumbered female students enrolled in sixth forms last year, with 1.4 percentage points more male students enrolled. 

The vast majority (87.2%) of post-secondary students were under the age of 19 years, while foreign students accounted for some 14.6% of the whole cohort. 

Most post-secondary students in Malta (84.5%) enrolled in a state-run school, while just over half (54.2%) were enrolled in vocational studies. 

When it comes to tertiary education, student enrollment was up by 11% when compared to the year prior, for a total of 21,120 students. 

The NSO noted that their was also an increase in institutions offering tertiary education courses last year. 

More than half (58.2%) of all students enrolled in tertiary education were female. 

Most tertiary-level students chose to enrol in a full-time course (69%) while part-time students saw an increase of 7.7% in enrollment. 

There were 6,497 foreign students enrolled in tertiary education last year, or some 30.8% of all enrolled students. 

Of these, 15.5% were EU nationals while 15.3% were students from non-EU member states. 

The largest proportion of tertiary students were enrolled in a bachelor's degree (51.8%) followed by Master's degree students (32.9%). 

Female students outnumbered their male counterparts at almost all tertiary levels, except in ISCED level 8, meaning a doctorate degree or equivalent.

At the tertiary level, the most popular field of study was business, administration and law with 28.5% of students enrolled in these courses. 

This was followed by the health and welfare field with 22.1% of the total.

The least popular field of study at tertiary level was agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary, with only 0.4% of students taking up these fields.