Relevance
Data related to education statistics is required by Regulation EC No.
452/2008 and implemented under Regulation EU No. 912/2013. The topics
covered include student enrolments, entrants, student mobility, graduates
(education attainment), personnel and education expenditure. Data on classes and foreign languages is also
collected.
EUROSTAT has a data sharing agreement with UNESCO-UIS (UNESCO Institute
for Statistics) and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development). The goal of the UNESCO-UIS/OECD/Eurostat (UOE) data
collection on education statistics is to provide internationally comparable
data on key aspects of formal education systems, specifically on the
participation and completion of education programmes, the costs and type of
resources dedicated to education.
Main users of Education
statistics are Ministries, Government Departments, Private companies,
Researchers, Students and the General Public; as well as other Units within
NSO.
Methodological
description of survey
Education statistics covers three
economic sectors: state, church and private. A census is carried out on
an annual basis. An updated list of institutions (schools) is supplied from the
Ministry for Education (MFED). List of accredited and licensed private
institutions in supplied to NSO by the National Commission for Further and
Higher Education (NCFHE). The
main external sources of education statistics data are the Ministry for
Education (MEDE), schools and educational institutions, and the Secretariat for
Catholic Education. Internal sources, particularly for Education Expenditure
data, are the Public Finance Unit, Prices Unit and Living Conditions and
Culture Statistics Unit.
Pre-primary to secondary levels
Data on Students attending state
schools; on Teaching staff in state, church and private schools; as well as
data on Non-teaching staff in state and church schools, is provided by MEDE.
Data for Students attending church and independent schools, non-teaching staff
and data on education expenditure are collected through electronic
questionnaires sent directly to the concerned schools.
Post-secondary and tertiary levels
Questionnaires are sent via
email to state, church and private institutions delivering courses in Malta.
This data collection covers students enrolled, student mobility, graduates
(students obtaining a qualification), personnel employed in educational
institutions and data on educational expenditure.
Accuracy and
reliability of data
The NSO has full coverage of all
education institutions in the target population (schools delivering courses in
Malta). Consistency checks are carried out with data provided from previous
academic years and coherence tests are made with other auxiliary sources.
Every effort is made to minimise the
incidence of non-sampling error such as unit non-response and item
non-response, in which case imputations are performed. Nevertheless, since the
questionnaire is filled in by the respondents independently, this may cause
non-sampling error which can be reduced by adequate validations.
Education statistics are
not normally subject to revisions. However, whenever revisions are carried out,
these are always adequately documented both in the quality report that is
annually sent to Eurostat and in the methodological sheet accompanying NSO news
releases.
Timeliness and
punctuality of data
Data on Students, Staff, Foreign
Languages, Classes and Entrants collection is launched in April t+1 and
transmitted to Eurostat in September t+2. Credit Mobility and Expenditure data
collection is launched in April t+1 and transmitted to Eurostat in November
t+2, together with the Graduates data which is collected in December t+1 -
March t+2. All data is submitted to Eurostat on time.
Every year, a quality report,
together with the ISCED integrated mapping of national programmes and
qualifications, is transmitted to the Commission (Eurostat) by 31 January in
year t+3. This report documents statistical presentation and processing,
quality management, relevance, accuracy and reliability, timeliness and
punctuality, accessibility and clarity, comparability and coherence, cost and burden,
and confidentiality.
The Unit is targeting an
improvement in timeliness for the dissemination of Education statistics at a
national level and on introducing new releases such as ‘Personnel in Education’.
These releases are published on the NSO’s website as scheduled in
the News Release Calendar.
Accessibility and
clarity of data
The Unit publishes several releases
on a yearly basis related to education statistics. These are:
‘Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary Formal Education’ release, ‘Teaching
English as a Foreign Language’, ‘Students in Post-Secondary and Tertiary
Education’, ‘Absenteeism in Mandatory Education’ and ‘Graduates’ releases. For
clarity each news release contains very detailed methodological notes.
A publication on ‘Pre-primary,
Primary and Secondary Formal Education’ was published in 2018. This
publication span over five academic years 2012/2013 – 2016/2017 and portrays
information on the formal education sector in Malta and Gozo. Past publications
on education statistics are available on the NSO’s website, from academic year
2000/2001 up to academic year 2007/2008.
Each news release and
publication are accessible from the NSO’s website. Eurostat data is accessible
from the Eurostat Database.
Coherence and
comparability/consistency of data
Data related to education statistics is fully comparable with all other
European Union Member States as all countries are bound by Regulation (EC) No.
452/2008 and implemented under Regulation (EU) No. 912/2013. The UOE Manual is
followed by each country and any deviations from the Manual are clearly
documented in the annual quality report.
ISCED 11 was used, as requested, for the first time for academic year
2012/2013. Previous data is classified in ISCED 97. Fields classification 2013
was used as from 2014/2015, previous data was classified in Fields
classification 1999. ISCED 45 was revised and recoded into ISCED 35. This
change has been applied as from academic year 2012/2013.
Data prior to academic year 2012/2013 has not been revised to include
the reclassifications of upper secondary education, ISCED and Fields of
Education, and is therefore not comparable to other data. Conversely, all
data collected from this academic year onwards are fully consistent and hence
comparable.
Only formal courses that
are delivered in Malta and with minimum duration of one year FT equivalent are
included in the official statistics. Thus, the NCFHE National Publication might be incoherent with
NSO education statistics since NCFHE includes also certain short courses, and
all homegrown courses, some of which might not be delivered in Malta.
Comparability issues may feature also in the MQF level vis-a-vis ISCED level.
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