NEWS | Sunday, 15 July 2007
MCAST attracts students from South
Junior College and Higher Secondary attract students from North
By James Debono
Pembroke emerges as the locality where most young people pursue their studies after secondary level. On the other hand the six least represented localities in the country’s post secondary institutions all hail from the inner harbour area.
While the more vocationally oriented Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology is attracting more students from the south of Malta, the more academically oriented Junior College, is attended by more students from the North.
7 out of the 10 most represented localities in MCAST hail from the south harbour or south eastern region. These include Fgura, Safi, M’Scala, Zejtun, Gudja, Ghaxaq and Santa Lucija.
On the other hand only Gudja is represented among the 10 localities which are mostly represented in the Junior College.
On the other hand 7 out of the 10 least represented localities in the Junior College hail from the south harbour region.
Cottonera students are also better represented in MCAST than in the Junior College. While only 18 Junior College students hail from the Birgu, Bormla and Isla, 79 students hailing from the three cities attend MCAST.
Bormla is one of the least represented localities in Junior College with only 1% of young Bormlizi aged between 15 and 24 attending this institution, 4.8% attend MCAST.
Only 1.6% of Birgu’s 15 to 24 year olds attend Junior College, 6.1% attend MCAST courses.
Xghajra, the southern locality set to host the SmartCity project does not even have a single student at Junior College and only 7 MCAST students out of a total of 171 youths aged between 15 and 24.
6.3% of Gozitans aged between 15 to 24 attend MCAST. No statistics are available on the number of Gozitans attending Junior College and Higher Secondary.
As regards attendance in Higher Secondary, north harbour localities like Swieqi, Saint Julians and Sliema prevail-an indication that parents in these middle class areas tend to encourage their children to pursue their academic studies despite failing to enter Junior College.
Valletta and Marsa which incidentally also boast the highest rates of unauthorised absenteeism in schools at primary and secondary levels also have very low rates of attendance at the Higher Secondary, MCAST and Junior College.
On the other hand Pembroke, Iklin, Attard and rural Mgarr boast the highest rate of students who continue their studies either at MCAST or Junior College.
This results from a MaltaToday analysis of statistics presented by Education Minister Louis Galea in parliament, over the past month. In responce to questions by Opposition Education spokesperson Carmelo Abela.
The number of students in each locality was calculated as a percentage of the number of people aged between 15 and 24 in each locality according to the latest census figures for 2005.
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Only 41 university students representing the Cottonera localities were amongst the 2457 students who graduated last year.
The four Cottonera localities of Kalkara, Isla, Bormla and Vittoriosa together account for nearly 4% of the Maltese population but only for 1.5% of university graduates in 2006.
On the other hand 7% of graduates were from the Three Villages, namely Attard, Lija and Balzan localities which also account for 4% of the Maltese population.
Valletta, our capital city in which 1.5% of the population live, accounts for only 0.5% of the number of graduates,
Another unrepresented locality is Qormi which accounts for 4% of the Maltese population but only for 2% of the university population.
Apart from these notable exceptions, the percentage of university graduates from each locality generally reflects the population of that locality.
8% hailed from Sliema, Saint Julian and Swieqi, locations which account for 7% of the population.
Gozo, responsible for 7.6% of the Maltese population, represents 8.4% of university graduates. 62% of Gozitan graduates in 2006 were females.
In Birkirkara, which holds 5.4% of the Maltese population, university graduates were found at 6%.
Although females account for 57% of the total number of university graduates in a few localities like Cospicua, M’Scala, in places like Poala and Qormi males still outnumber females.
These trends emerge from a MaltaToday analysis of statistics provided by the University of Malta to the newspaper. |
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