Government and social conditions > Education

The Labour government radically altered the education system, which was previously structured on British models and strongly influenced by the Roman Catholic church. Compulsory education was extended to include all children from the ages of 6 to 16. An attempt at establishing an extreme form of the “comprehensive” system was abandoned; streaming (the grouping of students by age and intellectual ability) and examinations were at first discarded but later reintroduced; purely technical institutes were not compelled to follow the program. At the tertiary level, a student-worker scheme was introduced in 1978, students working for six months and studying for six months, thereby linking admission to institutions of higher learning to the availability of employment. This system was largely revoked by the Education Act of 1987, and admission to institutions of higher learning is now based completely on competence.

The University of Malta, founded as a Jesuit college in 1592 and established as a state institution in 1769, was refounded in 1988. It offers courses in most disciplines and has a prestigious medical school. Its modern campus at Tal-Qroqq also houses the International Maritime Law Institute and the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies. The historic Old University building in Valletta is now the seat of the university-linked Foundation for International Studies and its associated bodies, the International Environment Institute, the Mediterranean Institute, and the Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Marine Contamination Hazards (created by the Council of Europe). Malta is also the site of the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea, operated jointly by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).