Half of Malta’s foreign-born individuals aged between 25 and 34 have completed tertiary education compared to a third of the country’s nationals in the same age group.

These figures emerge from the newly launched National Strategic Action Plan for Further and Higher Education 2022-2030, which says they highlight Malta’s reliance on foreign workers to plug the skills gap in the economy.  

The statistics show that 64% of EU nationals and 46% of third-country nationals between 25 and 34 years of age have attained tertiary qualifications.

Meanwhile, 33% of Maltese youth have completed a tertiary level course. The number of individuals with tertiary level qualifications in the whole population of that age group has jumped from 30 to 40% between 2013 and 2020.

But the improvement is largely due to the arrival of EU nationals in the labour market, the strategy document says.

“This highlights Malta’s high reliance on foreigners to meet skills shortages and sustain economic growth.”

Progress has been made among Malta’s native-born population: in 2009 only 22% of 25- to 34-year-olds had tertiary education attainment, rising to 31% by 2019.

However, the figure is still significantly lower than the average in the EU, where 41% of citizens living in their own country have completed a tertiary-level course of study.

On the other hand, Malta’s immigrants are better skilled than those in other EU countries: only 35% of immigrants in the EU have completed tertiary education.

Tertiary education is post-secondary education, defined to be at or higher than level five in the European Qualifications Framework. Level five qualifications include diplomas of higher education and further education, foundation degrees and higher national diplomas.

Malta’s population shot up to 519,562 over the last 10 years, according to the 2021 census, and foreign nationals account for a quarter of the number. The document is intended to provide a strategic direction for the country’s educational policy. It is up for public consultation until January 9.

Among its proposals to improve higher education attainment is a pilot programme of subsidised bank loans to vulnerable students.

The scheme would aim to reduce the number of students dropping out because of financial difficulties.

The action plan looks at the coming seven years under seven broad “strategic pillars”.

Those pillars are more inter-departmental cooperation, exploiting emerging opportunities, enhancing education attainment, improving quality and transparency, making learning more relevant, widening participation and adult learning, and internationalisation.

The numbers leaving education after secondary school have dropped dramatically in the last 15 years, the report states.

Around a third of students were early school leavers in 2005 but that figure dropped to 16.7% by 2020. Still, the rate of students leaving school after secondary is higher than the EU benchmark of 10%.

A focus on improving vocational education and publicly subsidising internships and work experiences are some of the policies that aim to reduce the early school leaver rate further.

Increasing basic digital literacy skills to 80% of the population, reducing the number of low-qualified persons and promoting mobility opportunities for students are among the 2030 strategic educational goals.

The document can be seen here.