|
Middle-class Attard has the highest percentage of university students, but neglected Bormla is bottom of the league
James Debono
A north-south divide is pervading the Maltese educational system. While affluent villages Attard, Balzan, Lija and Iklin emerge as the localities with the highest number of university students as a percentage of the population, localities within the inner harbour region have the lowest percentage of students.
Attard has the highest number of university students as a percentage of its population while Bormla has the lowest.
This emerges from a MaltaToday analysis of figures issued in parliament last week. While university students amount to 4.6% of Attard’s population, the number of students in Cospicua amounts to a sheer 0.4% of the population.
Two Gozitan localities, Rabat and Munxar also make it among the top ten.
The only southern locality to make it among the top ten localities is Marsaskala which comes in seventh place with 3.3% of its population attending university.
On the other hand exception of the Gozitan locality of Zebbug, the bottom 10 localities all hail from the inner harbour area.
While these statistics indicate a north-south educational divide, an ageing population in certain towns could also be a factor. For example Sliema, a relatively affluent town with an ageing locality, only comes eighteenth.
However, Sliema still manages to surpass relatively younger southern localities like Santa Lucija and Fgura.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
|
