Maltese youths leaving education earlier than their European peers

20.4% of Malta’s 18-24 year olds have at most a secondary level of education and are not in further education or training, a higher percentage than in all other EU countries, except Spain (23.6%).

Eurostat figures show that the rate is higher amongst males, with 22.3% of young males having left school early as of 2014, compared with 18.3% of young females.

While Malta’s early-school-leaving rate has plummeted from 32.2% in 2006, it is still some way off from its Europe 2020 target of 10% and from the current EU average of 11.9%.

Conversely, the lowest proportions of early school leavers in 2014 were observed in Croatia (2.7%), Slovenia (4.4%), and Poland (5.4%). The share of early leavers from education and training was lower for women than men in all member states, except Bulgaria.

In 2014, Malta also registered the third-lowest proportion of 30-34 year-olds who had completed tertiary education (26.6%), ahead of only Italy (23.9%) and Romania (25%), behind its EU2020 target of 33% and well behind the current EU average of 37.9%.

However, it is a notable improvement from the 9.3% that was registered in 2002. 

The tertiary education rate was significantly higher amongst women, with 30.5% of 30-35 year old women having completed tertiary education by 2014, compared with 22.9% of 30-35 year old men.

At the other end of the scale, more than half of the population aged 30 to 34 had completed tertiary education in Lithuania (53.3%), Luxembourg (52.7%), Cyprus (52.5%) and Ireland (52.2%).