More students not turning up for their A-levels

Just under half of the 37 students who registered for their advanced level exam in religious knowledge did not even turn up for their exam.

So did six of the 14 students who had registered for the Arabic A-level exam and 18 of the 59 students who had registered for the Italian exam.

Abstention was lower but still significantly high in other subjects like A-level English where 142 of 783 students were absent.

Overall, the percentage of candidates who failed to turn up for their A-level exams in the first session has increased from an average of 6.8% in 2015 to 13.3% in 2022.

Among those sitting for their intermediate level (IM) exams the percentage of absentees has increased from an average of 4.5% in 2015 to 15.6% in 2022.

No-shows for the second session also increased from 8.2% (A-level) and 5% (I-level) in 2017 to 22.2% and 19.5% respectively in 2022.

The data comes from a recently published report by  Matsec, the entity that runs the exams. The report suggests that the likely reason for the increase in abstention rate was the introduction of free exams in 2019.

“This data suggests that the introduction of government subsidized examinations in 2019 might have considerably increased the number of absent candidates,” the report writers said.

The report notes that for the  “fourth consecutive year following the removal of registration fees for examinations”, the percentage of absent candidates has remained considerably high, with a further increase of 1.2% from last year.

On average, 13.3% of Advanced level candidates were absent in 2022 up from  12.1% in 2021.  The report notes that the figure of absentees stood at 7.4% in 2018, where half the examination registration fees were covered by the State, and 7.1% in 2017 when candidates paid registration fees for examinations.

This difference is notable in some subjects more than others. For example, more than a quarter of applicants were absent for Advanced Arabic (42.9%) and Advanced Religious Knowledge (40.5%).

For Intermediate Level, the values of absenteeism stood at 100% for Greek, 42.9% for Russian and 40% for Arabic, three subjects chosen by less than 10 students.

When compared to last year, some subjects experienced a 100% increase in absentee rate – Advanced Sociology (from 8.6% to 20.5%) and Advanced Spanish (from 9.1% to 18.2%). At Intermediate level all subjects recorded an increase in absenteeism.

The increase in absenteeism has also contributed to a lower pass rate in the past years.

In fact, the report notes a decreased rate of candidates obtaining Grades A to C in most subjects at either level compared to that of previous years. But this is partly the result of the increasing rate of absenteeism.

Had the average percentage of candidates obtaining Grades A to C at Advanced and Intermediate level examinations of the First Session (44.8% and 41.8% respectively) been reworked to exclude absent candidates from the total registrations, the figures would change to 54.3% and 50.8% respectively, which is like that of previous years.

The report shows that a total of 1,338 candidates were awarded the Matriculation Certificate in 2022, including 1,071 (425 males and 646 females) candidates from the 2004 cohort. This means that 25.4% of 18-year-olds residing in Malta qualified for the Matriculation Certificate in 2022.

The report also refers to the growing trend of first year sixth form students sitting for Matriculation examinations before the end of their course, expressing concern that this is detrimental to their educational and personal development.