“Today, speaking a second language is an undeniable asset, even a necessity in many professions. It is also a very personal way to open up to new cultures and iA Financial Group is very pleased to help young people, who impress with their earnestness, openness and hunger to learn, for the tenth year in a row,” said Denis Ricard, President and Chief Executive Officer of iA Financial Group, upon awarding the scholarships at the company’s head office in Quebec City.

In the current scheme, 22 students received CA$2,000 each for English immersion experiences around the world, including in San Diego, Honolulu and Malta. Two students from Cégep Sainte-Foy each received a CA$4,000 scholarship allowing them to complete a session at Humber College in Toronto. Fourteen students from Cégep Garneau will share CA$28,000 to finance an immersion trip to Summer Campus, in Mexico, to learn Spanish. Additionally, CA$30,000 was shared among 15 students from Cégep Limoilou to finance an English immersion trip to the Global Village Hawaii, in Honolulu.

With these scholarships, the foundation has awarded more than $800,000 since its establishment in 2010, with a total of 365 students from Cégeps de Sainte-Foy, Limoilou and Garneau having received financial support from iA Financial Group.

The post Canadian foundation sends language students to Malta with scholarship first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The majority of EFL students arrived from Italy (27.0%), followed by Germany (11.5%) and France (10.2%). The top three countries accounted for 48.7% of total students.

The largest share of language students arrived from the age group of 15 years or less, accounting for 34.2% of the total student visits. Students aged 50 years and over were in the minority and numbered 6,159.

Unsurprisingly, July was the busiest month for local licensed ELT schools with 20,330 arrivals, constituting 23.3% of the annual total. June and August delivered 11.7% and 10.8% of total visitors, respectively.

International students enrolled in local licensed ELT schools spent a total of 215,252 weeks in Malta. The average length of stay during 2018 also dropped slightly by 0.3 to 2.5 weeks, according to NSO statistics.

With an average of 11.0 weeks, students from Colombia recorded the highest average duration, followed by South Korean and Turkish learners with an average length of 7.9 and 6.4 weeks, respectively.

Teaching staff in local licensed ELT schools numbered 1,028. The 18-24 age group cut the most significant slice of the pie with 33.1%.

The full report including charts and visual representation of data is available for download at the website of NSO.

The post Foreign EFL student numbers in Malta slightly drop in 2018 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.