Substantial progress has been made in talks with a private consortium to turn the White Rocks Complex into a sports village, the Parliamentary Secretary for Sports, Clyde Puli, said this morning.

In December, the government had renewed its commitment to develop the White Rocks area  but admitted that, after more than a year, negotiations with the investors had not gone as expected.

The project was revealed by the Prime Minister in 2010. He had announced a project to build the largest multi-sports facilities in southern Europe through a €200 million foreign direct investment which would create 800 jobs.

Mr Puli said this morning that the proposed investment and the project as such, had not changed over the months.

He also spoke on the Marsa sports village plans, saying that the government was considering whether to re-issue an amended call for expressions of interest in the near future.

The government had issued a call for expressions of interest - the ideabeing to use public land without public investment.

Although five people had bought the tender document, none of them had submitted a bid.

The government met these possible investors and discussed with them what they had in mind.

Mr Puli was speaking during a press conference outlining the ministry's fourth year of the current legislature.

He said that the biggest achievement in the past year was the creation of employment for young people with 1,871 of 3,428 ETC placements being given to young people.

He mentioned the setting up of Agenzija Zghazagh and how this was putting into practice the National Youth Policy.

Mr Puli said that nearly 1,600 scholarships had been given in four years and said that sports scholarships were now also being given.

A total 13,000 people had followed the National Sports Council programme and the government was planning to open another four outdoor fitness centres, similar to that at Ta' Qali. Two of them were planned Mellieha and Zabbar.

Another 19 football grounds were also being upgraded, added to the 33 which had already been revamped.

Education Minister Dolores Cristina spoke about the reform in the education sector and said that although a lot had been done, a lot more still needed to be done.

She mentioned the opening of several child care centres and described the early intervention centre to give special help to children under three who had certain problems as a milestone.

Professional care, the minister said, also continued to be given to children who suffered from certain conditions, such as dyslexia and autism, by people who are specialised in the field.

Ms Cristina spoke about the removal of streaming, a concept that was slowly being accepted. Malta, she said, had the most inclusive education system in Europe.

On the removal of the common entrance examination this year, she said that this had helped remove stress from students but the results of this experiment were currently being analysed.

Another achievement was that more students were continuing with their education with the numbers of early school leavers dropping from 54 per cent in 2004 to 32.6 per cent last year.

Plans to reduce the number to 29 per cent by 2020 would probably be reached by the end of this legislature, the minister said.