Malta with highest employment rate for recent graduates in EU

Systems of Knowledge fail rate almost doubles

Malta has the highest employment rate for recent graduates in the European Union in 2017, a report by Eurostat shows.

A recent graduate is defined by the report as people aged 20-34, who are not in education and training, and who completed their education three years ago at most. For the benefit of this study, the education level taken was that of upper-secondary, so as to include tertiary level education as well.

The rate of employment for this demographic in Malta stands at 94.5 per cent, which is the highest across the whole of the EU, and is by far ahead of the EU average – which stands at 80.2 per cent. This is despite the fact that the rate is actually a slight decrease on the figure for the previous year, which stood at 96.6 per cent.

Behind Malta, Germany has the second highest rate of employment for recent graduates at 91 per cent, followed by the Netherlands and Czech Republic, which each have a rate of 90 per cent. At the other end of the spectrum, Greece has the lowest rate of employment for recent graduates at just 52 per cent, while Italy does not fare well either in the study, with a rate of 55 per cent.

Of the rest of the EU powerhouse countries, Spain’s rate has continued to increase, such that it now stands at 71.9 per cent, a stark contrast to the 59.9 per cent rate it had in 2013. The United Kingdom also maintained an above average rate of employment for recent graduates, at 86.6 per cent. France, meanwhile, registered a marginal increase on its previous figures, with a rate of 74.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, the past weekend saw the publication of the much-awaited MATSEC exam results in Malta, both at SEC and Matriculation level.

A total of 5,145 students sat for their SEC exams, a slight increase on the 5,078 students who sat for the same exams in 2017. Meanwhile, 3,805 students sat for their Matriculation exams, 214 less than the total number of students who sat for the same set of the exams in 2017.

The most startling figure, however, was the number of failing grades in Systems of Knowledge, which is required for entry into the University of Malta. The percentage of students failing this subject in 2018 is almost double that of 2017.

Indeed, statistics published by MATSEC show that 637 out of the 2,043 students who sat for the exam failed to pass the subject, which equates to 31 per cent. In the May session of 2017, meanwhile, 335 out of 2,071 students failed SOK (16%).

Otherwise, marking patterns have remained largely the same across both SEC and Matriculation subjects.

English was the most popular SEC subject, with 4,117 students sitting for it, followed by Mathematics (4,065 students), Maltese (3,675 students) and Physics (2,987 students). The pass rates for these subjects remained in similar territory compared to the results of 2017; the English pass rate rose by 0.4 per cent, the Mathematics pass rate rose by 1.5 per cent, the Maltese pass rate rose by 1.1 per cent, while the Physics pass rate fell by 1.2 per cent. It was also a mixed bag in the other science subjects; similar to Physics, Environmental Studies registered a decrease in its pass rate of 1.4 per cent, but Biology retained exactly the same pass rate – even though with 27.9 per cent of the students failing, it still holds the highest rate of failure of all the main subjects – while Chemistry’s pass rate rose by 1.7 per cent.

At Matriculation level, meanwhile, English remained the most popular Advanced level subject with 749 students sitting for the exam. It was followed by Biology (621 students), Maltese (548 students) and Pure Mathematics (490 students). The pass rate for all these subjects improved in 2018 from the previous year, with increases of 1.7 per cent in English, 0.7 per cent in Maltese, 1.1 per cent in Biology and 4.4 per cent in Pure Mathematics.

Since Systems of Knowledge is a compulsory subject, it was by far the Intermediate level subject which most students sat for. It was followed in numbers by English (889 students), Psychology (811 students), Physics (545 students) and Pure Mathematics (528 students). It is interesting to note that last year Psychology was the intermediate subject that most students sat for aside from Systems of Knowledge. It is also interesting to see that, contrary to the Advanced level subjects, there was a fall in the pass rates of each of the four subjects, with decreases of 0.5 per cent in English, 0.7 per cent in Psychology, 4.7 per cent in Physics and four per cent in Pure Mathematics.

The standout result out of all these statistics, however, remains the sharp increase in failures in Systems of Knowledge. Numerous students had raised concerns on social media about this, with a number stating that they had received a very high or even full mark in their project, which is worth 40 per cent of the global mark, but then failed to pass the subject. The syllabus of the subject states that for a pass to be received, the student must pass both the project and the written examination.