500 traineeships, work exposure schemes and temping agency for asylum seekers

The Employment and Training Centre will battle unemployment by offering 500 traineeships and work exposure schemes every year for the next seven years, hence giving a leg up to people with little work experience.

The ETC, which will be rebranded into ‘JobsPlus’, will also launch a scheme that will grant employment aid to businesses that they will use to promote the employment of disadvantaged jobseekers.

In an attempted clampdown on precarious employment, JobsPlus will also place downloadable employment contract templates on their website. It will also distribute a charter of basic workers’ rights to every household on the island. 

Moreover, 400 workers are expected to benefit next year from a scheme that obliges subcontracted workers to receive equal pay as workers employed directly by government.

Stipends for mature students and a university ‘master plan’ 

For the first time, mature students (23 or older) enrolled in full-time courses at university or MCAST will receive stipends.

This scheme – which will kick in from January – will precede an ambitious ‘masterplan’ for the University of Malta that envisages the roping in of the private sector to help it develop into an ‘academic city’ that will literally be active 24/7. Next year, the UoM will establish two new entities – one to act as a quality assurance tester for its courses and services, and another to provide academics with administrative assistance for research. 

New facilities will be built to cater for post-doctorate courses, and the Mathematics and Physics building will be extended.

Investment will also be poured into the small Gozo Campus, with the final goal of attracting doctorate students and post-doctoral researchers.

MCAST regeneration

MCAST will be split into three colleges – a Foundation College, a Technical College, and a University College. New blocks will be built for the institute of engineering and transport, the library, and the Learning Support Unit.

It will also offer more apprenticeship schemes and introduce new types of work-based learning.

Four new schools in the pipeline

A new post-secondary school in Gzira will cater specifically for 16-year-olds with only one O-level, so as to give them a leg up en route to further education, training, or work. Students attending this school will be granted stipends. 

New secondary schools will be built in Kirkop and Dingli, and the first phase of a new school in St Paul’s Bay will commence.

Moreover, the Wardija Education Resource Center will be extended, a football ground will be built at a Marsaskala school, a sports track will be built in Pembroke, and a former Treasury building will be converted into offices for the Department of Examinations.

Funds will be allocated to construct a new storey at the Mariam Al Batool Islamic school.

New childcare centres

Following the government’s much-praised introduction of free childcare, it will next year open three new child care centres in Haz-Zebbug, St Julian’s and Floriana.

The One Tablet Per Child project will start being rolled out, a new screening programme will aim to identify children’s special needs as early as possible, while primary schools that sign up to a literary scheme will be granted 100 books – 50 in Maltese and 50 in English – per classroom. 

Temping agency for asylum seekers

Companies in need of short or long term temporary workers will be able to employ asylum seekers by signing a contract with an agency to fill jobs with appropriately skilled workers.

A temporary staffing firm, also known as a ‘temp agency’, will retain asylum seekers to send out on short or long term assignments and the workers – described as ‘illegal migrants’ by the finance minister - will be paid directly by the agency.

The agency will be set up through a public private partnership and will ensure that workers are employed legally. The wage rate is yet to be determined, however, government underlined that these should not put Maltese workers at a disadvantage.

Loitering in Marsa by asylum seekers will no longer be tolerated and penalties on employers engaging workers illegally will increase.