ELT industry in Malta

ELT Industry experiences a 45% drop in student arrivals.

Malta has been given a very bad and unjust reputation by foreign newspapers and negative television commentaries. Last year, the private French television channel Capital 6 managed to portray Malta as a cheap venue for learning English. In its 20 minute commentary ELT industry in Malta was severely and unjustly hit.

The General Transport strike in July 2008 did not help to improve the situation. On the contrary, it added insult to injury by making the situation seem worse. This has caused a 45% drop in the ELT student arrival this year.

Staff lay-offs will become inevitable in the English Language Teaching (ELT) industry, and schools may even have to shut down if student arrivals continue to drop.  Overall, the industry experienced a decrease in the number of weeks booked by students from several major year – round markets, including Germany, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea, Austria, Japan and Poland.

            Schools faced with a substantial fall in student number will find it difficult to operate in the long term.  Should the crisis escalate or be prolonged then the possibility of school closures becomes very real.  The ELT industry was booming until the global financial crisis made headlines in 2008. 

            The global recession is another factor behind the decrease in students. This may seem to be the predominant cause however, the Maltese ELT industry has also suffered from the decline of the British pound which has made UK ELT schools more financially appealing. 

            Another crucial problem is the process of obtaining a visa.  Malta relies heavily on agencies to recruit ELT students many of which have lost their faith in the visa process and are taking their business elsewhere.  Agents have given up investing time and money to get visas for students to come to Malta when with the same effort they can be sending eight or ten students to the UK.

            In the current economic scenario, it is imperative for us to concentrate on core ELT markets rather than spread our resources too thinly in several potential new markets outside Europe, where the marketing learning curve is long and requires a relatively longer period of time before becoming effective.