The Ministry of Education and Employment launched an early school leaving strategy aimed at reaching the targets of Europe 2020. The consultation process for this strategy was also launched and will be finalised in a national conference in May. Minister for Education and Employment Hon. Evarist Bartolo said that the strategy is aimed to shed light on the reasons why students leave school at an early age and develop policies that motivate them to continue their studies. The Minister said that a number of students are disengaged with the current system and this strategy is aimed to give the necessary incentives for the continuation of their studies. Vocational education within a secondary education context will be given priority to improve early school leaving rates by providing the skills necessary for students to succeed in their education. Hon. Bartolo added that the policies which have been presented put vocational education on par with academic education. Such policies also fall in line with the Youth Guarantee Scheme which the government has promised to introduce within an EU framework. Dr James Calleja, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for Education and Employment, said that despite huge improvements in early school leaving rates there is still a major challenge ahead in order to reach the Europe 2020 targets of 10%. The current ESL rate in 2012 was 22.6%, following an NSO revision earlier this year. NSO Director General Mr Michael Pace Ross explained the revision and said that this was carried out in order for Maltese statistics to be comparable to those with other European Union members. He said that comparisons can now be made with the rest of the EU since the structure of the data has been compiled in a similar way. As part of a wide consultation process, the Ministry is planning to organise a National Conference on ESL in May 2013. The aim of the consultation process is offer guidance to the Ministry in establishing a new target for ESL within the context of the Europe 2020 targets. The Early School Leaving Strategy for