Malta FA launches new EU-funded project designed to combat school drop-outs

The new EU-funded project launched by the Malta FA is designed to create awareness about and to find effective ways to combat school drop-outs, using football as a tool.

The aim of the meetings convened as part of this project are to promote awareness of the role of football in education and prevent early school leaving, engage the audience to be an active agent of the promotion of football values for education.

This scale project is conducted in partnership by the Malta FA with Romanian, Moldovan, and Azerbaijan Football Associations, also involved are Pro-Lega Italy and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

The main purpose of this project is to entice people from a young age to better their career path through football.

In situations where parents make their children leave football for school, this project is aimed at introducing football in schools to help generate awareness of the equal importance of education engagement with football.

Football and Education can operate together with a strong collaboration between University and Football.

Schools are to be empowered in creating institutional networks, therefore facilitating training schemes, and helping monitor the child at school in the dual career paths of engaging in football drills, while staying in touch and focusing on the academic features.

Education dropout is still a considerable problem in Europe with about 10% of youngsters leaving school or training.

This Scale project is aimed to promote football and fight significant dropout in students/players aged 14-19.

This can be performed through:-

1. Establishing flexible school-football dual career paths to facilitate school achievements and reduce dropout among young players.

2. Sensitizing football teams and schools on the need to jointly find effective ways to reduce school dropout.

3. Instructing coaches in educating young players on the importance of school attendance and achievement.

4. Addressing the need for professional, semi-professional, and non-professional football teams to take care of players’ school achievements in formal institutional policies.

The Scale project is endorsed by UEFA and the UEFA Foundation for Children, its main outcome will be the Scale guidelines defining how to create and implement dual career paths that favor youngsters’ full commitment to both football and school within diverse EU contexts.

This Scale Project must be sustained by the introduction of specific football policies safeguarding school achievement at the National level, and a powerful dissemination sustained by UEFA and the UEFA Foundation to their 55 associated football federations, which could extend the dual career experience on a large scale in the European Union.

The Malta FA will also contribute by organizing a National Football Festival as part of this three-year project going forward.