Three-quarters of 16-17 year olds continued studying at post-secondary level

The share of 16-17-year-old students that continued studying at post-secondary level accounted for 76% of all 16–17-year-olds, figures out today show.

Female students who continued studying after Form 5 accounted for 79% of all young women aged 16 and 17, while among males the share stood at 72%.

The National Statistics Office said on Tuesday that there were 28,645 students enrolled at post-secondary and tertiary levels of education in the scholastic year 2021/2022 with 55% being women. Foreigners accounted for 21% of all students at both levels.

The most popular field of study at post-secondary vocational level was ‘Services’ (26%), whereas the most popular field of study at tertiary level was ‘Business, administration and law’ (27%)

A breakdown of figures shows that the number of students enrolled in post-secondary levels stood at 9,610, whilst 19,035 were enrolled in tertiary education. Males outnumbered females in post-secondary education by 1.3 percentage points, whilst there were more females enrolled in tertiary education than males by 16.1 percentage points.

Post-secondary students

Post-secondary students enrolled in sixth forms and other similar institutions totalled 9,610 during academic year 2021-2022, an increase of less than 0.1 points over the previous academic year.

This reference year saw more males than females enrolled at post-secondary level, as opposed to the previous two scholastic years.

The largest proportion of post-secondary students were aged under 20 years (89%). Foreign students enrolled in such institutions amounted to 1,160, accounting for 12%.

The share of 16-17-year-old students enrolled at post-secondary level accounted for 76% of the 16–17-year-old resident population.

The share of the 16–17-year-old female population enrolled at post-secondary level was higher than the share of males by 7.3 percentage points.

The vast majority of students at post-secondary level were enrolled in state-run institutions (86%).

Slightly more than half of the students were enrolled in courses or programmes of vocational study orientation (52%). The most popular field of study among students following a vocational programme was ‘Services’ (26%), followed by students enrolled in programmes related to the fields ‘Engineering, manufacturing and construction’ (16%) and ‘Health and welfare’ (15%).

Tertiary students

Students enrolled in tertiary level courses totalled 19,035 during academic year 2021-2022, an increase of 3.8% when compared to the previous academic year. Female students comprised 58% of the total students enrolled at the tertiary level.
The number of students at this level who were studying on a full-time basis amounted to 12,624, or 66% of the total. Part-time enrolments showed an increase of 1.1% over the previous academic year.

The largest proportion of tertiary students were engaged in courses at ISCED level 6 (Bachelor’s or equivalent) (53%), followed by ISCED level 7 (Master’s or equivalent) at 33%. More than half of the students enrolled at tertiary level were aged between 20 and 29 (54%). Female students outnumbered their male counterparts at almost all tertiary ISCED levels, except for ISCED 8 (PhD equivalent).

During academic year 2021-2022, foreign students at the tertiary level totalled 4,709, equivalent to 25% of all tertiary enrolments, where 13% were other EU nationals and 12% were non-EU nationals. This resulted in an increase of 7.1 percentage points of foreign students over the previous academic year.

At tertiary level, the most popular field of study was ‘Business, administration and law’ with 5,196 students, or 27% of the total number of students. This was followed by the ‘Health and welfare’ field with 4,052 students, or 21%. The least popular field of study at tertiary level was ‘Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary’ scoring an uptake of only 0.3%.