Foreign students from pre-primary to secondary school level have more than doubled in five years and exceeded 5,000 by the end of the 2016/17 scholastic year, according to official data published yesterday.
Non-Maltese students now account for one in every 10, with the biggest increase being registered among African and Asian pupils, whose number have more than trebled.
This trend emerged from a comprehensive study carried out by the National Statistics Office on all licensed schools in the Maltese islands, catering for students aged between three and 16 years.
The analysis covered five consecutive scholastic years, from 2012/13 to 2016/17. State schools had 57.6 per cent of students in 2016/17, followed by Church schools, with 29.2 per cent, and private schools, 13.2 per cent.
It transpired there was a steady, though slight, decline in the number of Maltese students, dropping from 52,644 in 2013 to 50,070 in 2017. On the other hand, there was a steady increase in foreigners, from 2,463 in 2013 to 5,401 in 2017.
This change mirrors the nationwide demographic shifts of recent years whereby there was a sharp rise in the overall Maltese population, which has exceeded 475,000, but…
