Spatial distribution of educational achievement : a case study using the catchment area of St Benedict's college

Abstract

Academic achievement in the Maltese Islands has always been one of the main foci of the educational establishment as a whole. Great emphasis has recently been placed on changing the educational system in order to allow more students to get the relevant academic accreditations and to allow more students to continue to post-secondary education. Better educational achievement over the whole nation is the key to long term economic growth in view of the need of competing with countries with highly educated and skilled workforces. While we do know that educational attainment in Malta is tied to one’s social class we know very little about the spatial distribution of achievement. The aim of this dissertation is to study the spatial distribution of educational attainment. In order to do this, the catchment area of St. Benedict’s College was chosen as a case study, specifically concerning the Secondary sector of education. The data collected regarded only the Form 1 classes. Each of the settlements in the catchment area was divided into four subdivisions, in order to find educational attainment differences between the various neighborhoods that make up small Maltese rural settlements. The achievement of students residing in each of these subdivisions, and ach settlement was portrayed though Geographical Information System and analysed through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Studies in Malta have indicated differences across the Census Regions, while there have been no studies at the locality level. The results of this study indicate that boys’ achievement across both Junior Lyceum and Area Secondary schools is tied with locality and subdivision, particularly with the Urban Conservation Area and the Rural Area. Girls on the other hand did not have a general association of achievement with place of residence. There were subdivisions where meaningful statistical differences in achievement were found.