One of four students are foreigners

The social, cultural and ethnical changes in St. Paul's Bay are well-known. However, statistics might still be quite astonishing.

Illum revealed official statistics from the Ministry for Education, which stated that 25.1% of the students attending St. Paul's Primary School, within Maria Regina College, are foreigners.

From a total of 838 students, 628 are Maltese, whilst 210 are foreigners.

Sources who spoke with illum, said that there are also a lot of foreigner students in the Gzira Primary school. As a matter of fact, from a total of 174 students, 138 are Maltese and 36 are foreigners. This implies that 20.7% of the total students in the Gzira Primary school are foreigners.

These statistics pose a greater challenge to all those that operate within the education sector.

Sister newspaper Illum also investigated the stigma state schools still face. "Church schools built a certain tradition due to the common entrance exam, which used to filter and enrol the best students in academic terms. If state schools face a stigma, this is very unjust. However, state schools offer the same level of education as church and private schools" the MUT President said.

A 24 year old state school teacher who spoke to Illum and insisted that stigma still exists in state schools.

"I believe that there is a huge stigma. It might be perceived because families of a certain econimic background send their children to private schools, whilst in state schools one finds students with different backgorunds. However, this doesn't imply that students who go to private schools are academically better than state school students."

Read more in today's edition of Illum.