Maltese 18-year-olds are Europeans most likely to stop studying, training

Malta had the highest share of early school leavers in the EU last year, according to a league table released by Eurostat for youth aged between 18 and 24.

The figures show that last year, 18.6% of Maltese young people between 18 and 24 were not in education or a training programme.

Malta’s EU target is to cut this to 10% by 2020.

The share of early leavers was higher for men (21.9%) than women (15.1%).

However, the statistics show that the proportion of early leavers declined substantially since 2006 when 32.2% of those aged between 18 and 24 were not in education or training.

Eurostat found that Croatia had the lowest share of early leavers from education and training at 3.1%, followed by Slovenia (4.3%) and Poland (5%).

Compared with 2006, the proportion of early leavers from education and training decreased in 2017 in all member states, except the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia.

Tertiary education

The statistics also show that 30% of those aged between 30 and 34 in Malta had successfully completed tertiary education last year. Malta’s 2020 target is 33%.

Even here, the progress since 2002 has been astronomical. Eurostat said that in 2002, a mere 9.3% in the 30-34 age cracket had successfully completed tertiary education.