The Ministry of Education has awarded Melita with a contract to connect all government-owned education institutions with dedicated fibre as part of a managed network. Melita expects the upgrade — covering more than 100 institutions — to future-proof Malta’s public schools, enabling them to leverage current and new digital technologies by removing bottlenecks associated with bandwidth, according to a press statement sent to Business Malta.

The contract award follows a public call to telecommunications operators issued last year which was won by Melita. More than half the schools will be connected as from the beginning of 2019-2020 academic year, with the rest of the schools being enabled by January 2020.

Melita CEO Mr Rösch tagged the day as an important one for Melita for being chosen as the service provider for supporting more than a hundred schools. “It is not only an investment in the infrastructure but also an investment in the future of the country,” Mr Rösch said.

“This project is important for Melita, not because of its scale but most importantly because of the impact, it will have on our children’s education. The new network will, in fact, allow the technology team within the Ministry of Education to manage and deliver services to all sites seamlessly and more efficiently, helping to make both teaching and learning more engaging and rewarding. As a forward-looking organisation which takes inspiration from the needs of our customers to invest in the right infrastructure to connect them to the services they need, being awarded this contract is very satisfying,” Mr Rösch added.

“As a small island in the big world, connectivity has always been crucial,” education minister Evarist Bartolo said. The minister also elaborated on the fact that traditionally speaking, maritime and aerospace connectivity has been important for Malta, being an island. However, as today sees immense digitalisation activities, internet connectivity is becoming more important than ever.

The minister also said that his ministry looks forward to further collaboration with Melita to enhance connectivity for both education and employment.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Business Malta’s morning report from the event has been updated with further details carried by the official press release issued in the afternoon. The cover picture of the article has also been changed to a photo of the Melita CEO speaking at the event.

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Focusing only on post-secondary level, the number of students enrolled in sixth forms and other institutions dropped by a year on year 7% to 10,194 during the academic year 2016-2017.

The largest proportion (88.8%) was aged between 15 and 19. Foreign students enrolled amounted to 667, accounting for 6.5% of the total.

The vast majority of enrolments (88.6%) was in institutions controlled by the government. Those enrolled in vocational institutions accounted for 47.2% of total students at this level.

The most popular field of study among vocational students was “Services” (18.9%), closely followed by “Engineering, manufacturing and construction” (18.1%) and “Information and Communication Technologies” (15.5%). Courses followed within “Services” included tourism-related courses.

Tertiary-level sees growth

Based on students enrolled in tertiary-level courses, the total number during the academic year 2016-2017 was 14,425, showing an increase of 4.8% compared to the previous academic year, as the NSO press statement figures show.

Female students were in the majority (55.9%), while almost three-quarters of the total student population at this level (73.5%) were studying on a full-time basis.

Nevertheless, part-time enrolments showed an increase of 14.3% over 2015-2016. The largest proportion of tertiary students (57.9%) was engaged in courses at the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) level 6 – Bachelor’s or equivalent. This proportion was followed by enrolments at ISCED level 7 (Master’s or equivalent), with a percentage of 29.4%.

Most tertiary students (46.7%) were aged between 20 and 24, followed by those under 20 years (21.6%). Moreover, female students outnumbered their male counterparts at almost all ISCED levels of tertiary education.

At the same time, foreign students totalled 1,204, accounting for 8.3% of tertiary level enrolments, showing an increase of 16.7% over the previous academic year.

Furthermore, at the tertiary level, the most popular fields of study emerged as “Business, administration and law” with 3,857 students and “Health and welfare” (2,802). In total, these two fields of study accounted for around 46% of tertiary-level enrolments in 2016-2017.

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

The post Post-secondary student numbers drop, tertiary increase in 2016-17 first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The event was conceptualised by the Department of Accounting and Business Studies within the Directorate for Learning and Assessment Programmes (DLAP) at the Ministry for Education and Employment (MEDE) and supported by HSBC Malta Foundation as part of its Future Skills programme.

Malta ranks in the lower end among the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries in terms of adults making money decisions in their household by themselves or together with others in the household, the press statement says.

The school quiz was designed to distinguish between needs and wants, budgeting, earning, spending and saving money, investments, insurance, banking services, and even donations.

“Considering that this was a first-of-its-kind quiz in Malta and Gozo, the enthusiasm shown by schools was remarkable and encourages us to continue creating more financial literacy-related events in future. The high participation also demonstrated that financial literacy needs to be more prominently discussed in the imagination of the public,” said Joanne Zammit, Education Officer for Accounting and Business Studies at DLAP.

More questions focused on students’ responsibility, awareness and knowledge when buying online, fixed and variable costs, and debt. The quiz was online, allowing students to use tablets and their mobile phones to answer the questions, aimed at increasing digital literacy as well. The Directorate for Digital Literacy and Transversal Skills provided the tablets and guided students on how to use the quiz app.

During the event, officials from the government’s financial capability strategy (2017-2019), Ġemma, and from HSBC also held presentations. MEDE Permanent Secretary Dr Frank Fabri handed the prizes and certificates.

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