It’s the season of graduations, but hundreds of young students in Malta are celebrating a different kind of milestone after successfully re-engaging with education through the Prince’s Trust International Achieve programme.

To date, a total of 320 students from 19 schools and education centres have benefitted from the programme and the turnaround in their life was celebrated during an elaborate ceremony at the Malta Aviation Museum. Representatives from 13 additional schools and centres entering the programme were also officially welcomed during the same ceremony.

The Achieve programme is a personal development and employability skills programme which was first delivered in Malta in 2015 by Prince’s Trust International in partnership with the Ministry for Education and Employment. The programme enjoys the financial support of HSBC Malta Foundation which has allocated a grant of €300,000.

At the time, Malta became the first country in the world outside of the UK to introduce the Achieve programme, which has been delivered by The Prince’s Trust in the UK where it has helped over 70,000 young people since it started in 1998. The programme was originally intended to be rolled out within state secondary schools in Malta, but was later expanded to church and independent schools.

Achieve supports young people aged 13 to 19 to re-engage and succeed in education. The modular programme provides a flexible approach to learning and development. This offers young people the chance to work on creative enterprise projects while also develop core employability skills. Learning projects are designed to help young people boost their confidence, improve behaviour, attainment and attendance.

Furthermore, apart from all the students benefitting from the programme and acquiring new skills, 30 Achieve students have achieved MQF Level 3, six students have achieved MQF Level 2 whilst another 23 students have achieved MQF Level 1 over the last two years.

“I was consistently failing to make the grades, felt let-down by the system and was on the verge of abandoning pursuit of any form of education. Achieve saved me. It showed me that despite my disinterest, I can after all learn vital personal and employability skills and become a contributing member of society. Achieve changed my life,” said one of the students at the ceremony.

The event was attended by HSBC Malta CEO Andrew Beane, Prince’s Trust International CEO Jonathan Townsend, programme delivery partners, educators, stakeholders, students and others.

Minister Evarist Bartolo said: “Achieve programme has become the bedrock of the silent revolution that is now underway in education. It opened pathways for young people previously not available to them. Today’s ceremony passes the baton on to these young people to carry on the revolution.”
“We believe that investing in our young people today builds a brighter future for all of society tomorrow.  We are proud to be supporting the Prince’s Trust Achieve programme which is helping these young people see just how much talent and potential they have and to develop greater self-confidence in order to seize the opportunities in front of them.” said HSBC Malta CEO Andrew Beane.

“It’s been such a pleasure to see the Achieve programme being delivered in Malta. The great achievements of the young people who have taken part on the programme is testament to the quality of programme delivery and high level of support from our delivery partners, the Ministry for Education and Employment and the HSBC Malta Foundation,” said Prince’s Trust International CEO Jonathan Townsend.