What Malta Can Learn from Cyprus: It Is Time to Rethink Vocational Education

Malta and Cyprus have much more in common than their Mediterranean location, their small size and their membership of the European Union. Both countries have experienced substantial economic growth, but both are also facing a serious shortage of workers in occupations requiring technical knowledge, practical skills and manual labour.

An editorial published in the Cyprus Mail on 30 October 2026 highlights a problem that should sound very familiar to anyone living in Malta. Cyprus is experiencing shortages of electricians, plumbers, mechanics, construction workers, decorators, equipment technicians and nurses. These are precisely the types of occupations in which Malta is also struggling to attract sufficient workers.

Yet there is a paradox. Many of these occupations can offer good earnings, sometimes even better than those available to university graduates. Nevertheless, young people continue to prefer white-collar employment and university education over learning a trade.

This is not simply an economic problem. It is also a cultural and educational one.

For decades, obtaining a university degree was considered the principal route to social advancement. Parents encouraged their children to pursue academic studies because a degree was associated with higher earnings, professional security and social prestige. This attitude was understandable at a time when university education was less accessible and graduate qualifications offered opportunities that were otherwise difficult to obtain.

However, circumstances have changed considerably.

Today, university degrees are much more widely available, but a degree no longer guarantees a well-paid job or even employment directly related to one’s field of study. Some graduates discover that their qualifications have limited practical application in the labour market. Others find themselves competing for relatively modestly paid administrative positions, including jobs within the public sector.

Meanwhile, skilled tradespeople can command substantial earnings. A competent plasterer, electrician, mechanic, builder or painter may earn more than someone who has spent several years at university. This is not true in every case, but it is increasingly difficult to maintain the assumption that academic qualifications automatically lead to better financial prospects.

Despite this reality, many families continue to regard manual occupations as socially inferior to office-based employment. Young people are encouraged to pursue academic qualifications even when their abilities, interests and future prospects might be better served through technical or vocational training.

The result is that our economies produce graduates in certain fields while continuing to suffer from shortages of people capable of carrying out essential practical work.

The situation in Cyprus is particularly revealing. According to the Cyprus Mail, only 17.9 per cent of secondary-school students participate in vocational education and training, compared with a European Union average of 52.4 per cent. These figures illustrate the extent to which vocational education has struggled to attract students in Cyprus.

The Cypriot government has recognised the problem. President Nikos Christodoulides has referred to the introduction and expansion of a Technical Gymnasium as an important development in the country’s educational system. The European Commission has also identified the need to make vocational education and training more attractive as part of its recommendations concerning Cyprus’s economic and educational challenges.

In other words, Cyprus is beginning to recognise that economic growth alone cannot resolve shortages of skilled workers. Education must also respond to the actual needs of society and the economy.

This is where Malta should pay particular attention.

I strongly believe that Malta should seriously consider reintroducing and strengthening vocational education at an earlier stage of schooling. Young people who have an aptitude for practical work should be given the opportunity to develop that aptitude through structured technical education rather than being pushed almost automatically towards purely academic pathways.

However, such a reform must be carefully planned.

The greatest mistake would be to recreate vocational schools as institutions for students considered academically weak or unsuccessful. If vocational education becomes a dumping ground for pupils who do not perform well in conventional academic subjects, the entire project will fail.

Vocational education must instead be regarded as a respectable and valuable educational pathway in its own right.

This means investing in properly equipped schools, qualified teachers, experienced professionals and strong links between education and industry. Students should be taught not simply how to perform a task, but how to master a trade, understand its technical foundations and develop the skills required to become competent professionals.

Vocational education should also provide opportunities for further study and advancement. A student who learns a trade should not be confined to that occupation for life. Technical education should offer pathways towards higher qualifications, entrepreneurship and professional development.

There is another important consideration. Malta has become increasingly dependent on foreign workers to meet shortages in sectors requiring manual and technical skills. Foreign workers make an important contribution to our economy, but their availability should not become an excuse for neglecting the technical education of Maltese young people.

We should be asking why our educational system is not producing sufficient numbers of skilled workers in occupations for which there is an evident demand.

We should also question the assumption that every young person must obtain a university degree to achieve professional success or social respectability.

University education remains essential. Malta needs doctors, engineers, researchers, teachers, historians, scientists and graduates from many other disciplines. The argument is not against universities or academic learning. It is against an educational culture that sometimes presents university as the only respectable route to success.

A good educational system should recognise that young people have different talents, interests and ambitions. Academic ability and practical intelligence are not mutually exclusive, and neither should be considered inherently superior to the other.

There is dignity in learning a trade. There is also economic opportunity.

What is happening in Cyprus should therefore serve as food for thought for Malta. Two Mediterranean economies are experiencing similar labour-market difficulties, and both must confront longstanding attitudes towards manual work and vocational education.

The answer cannot simply be to import more workers or encourage more students to obtain degrees without considering whether those qualifications correspond to the country’s needs.

Malta needs an educational system that values the skilled worker as much as the university graduate.

If Cyprus is beginning to rethink its approach to vocational education, perhaps the time has come for Malta to do the same.

I am sharing the Cyprus Mail editorial because I believe its message deserves serious consideration in Malta. The question is not whether our young people should study. The question is whether we are giving them the right opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills that will allow them to build successful and rewarding careers.

A university degree should not be the only measure of educational achievement. Sometimes, a skilled pair of hands can be just as valuable as an academic qualification.

Source: Cyprus Mail, 30 October 2026, “Our View: Cyprus Must Rethink Its Attitude to Vocational Education.”

Less than a fifth of students in secondary education attend vocational education and training programmes, said President Nikos Christodoulides, in an address to the opening ceremony of the ninth national competition SkillsCyprus 2026. In Cyprus, only 17.9 per cent of students are in vocational education, drastically lower than the EU average of 52.4 per cent.

The European Commission’s recommendations for each member-state noted the steady and positive course of the Cyprus economy, but also recorded the challenges faced in the fields of productivity, innovation and skills, he said. The Commission saw a need in increasing the attractiveness of vocational education and training, something that successive Cyprus governments have failed to do despite persistent labour shortages.

Cyprus has faced a big shortage of electricians, plumbers, car mechanics, construction workers, decorators and equipment technicians for years. Although these are well-paid jobs, only a small percentage of young people are interested in them; there is now also a shortage of nurses. Is it because these are considered low-status jobs and everyone wants to be a white-collar worker, even if there is less money? Or perhaps the young are no longer interested in physical work.

University education always had great value in Cyprus. In the days when there were no universities in Cyprus, parents would make many sacrifices to send their children to universities abroad, because a degree was considered a surefire way of improving themselves, materially and socially. University education was never about broadening a youth’s horizons and sharpening their intellect, but about having the means to earn more money and acquiring social status.- Now that university degrees are widely available and many of them are of dubious value, most graduates are guaranteed neither high earning power nor the social status enjoyed in the past. But still, youngsters have no interest in plumbing or electrical work. Perhaps it is because the ambition of many is to get the dream job in the public service which does not have many openings for individuals with technical skills.

In his speech, Christodoulides mentioned the operation of the Technical Gymnasium, which he described as “an innovation that is a landmark in the Cypriot educational environment.” The institution had already expanded, a fact that illustrated the gap of not having such a special school which catered for the preferences of wishes of the students. He may have read too much significance into the existence of the Technical Gymnasium, because if the institution was such a success, it would have been expanded, and we would not have lowest participation in vocational learning in the EU.

At least the government, despite the president’s positive spin, recognises there is a problem that needs to be tackled. There are no ready solutions, and it will be difficult to change the way society views manual jobs. This is why the government needs to study the issue and develop a plan to attract more youths to vocational training.