Drink clouds 'sun-and-study' image

Reports of drunken language students blighting Malta's tourist centres threaten to stall Malta's growing popularity as an English-learning destination, says Karl Schembri in The Guardian Weekly:

As a new day dawns in Paceville, Malta's tourist entertainment mecca, the rising sun catches lager and vodka bottles littering the street. Around a corner a crowd of foreign students - some of them below legal drinking age - gathers at a beer shop to stock up on more cheap alcohol. For some of these students it is only a short walk from the bars and clubs of the night before to their English language schools and, hangover permitting, another morning in class.

Young European students, attracted in their thousands each year by the promise of Malta's native fluency in English and Mediterranean sun, are increasingly falling foul of another more intoxicating cocktail: cheap booze and freedom from parents. This summer has seen a rise in complaints from locals and other tourists about young people running amok and reports in the foreign press that the problem could be getting out of hand.

The Goteborgs Posten, an influential Swedish newspaper, reported last month that students in Malta have "sex on the beach, unlimited access to alcohol, drugs and nightlife", while images of teenagers engaged in drunken brawls or unconscious on the street have been making headlines.

This former British colony of 400,000, which gained membership of the EU in 2004, is reliant on its tourism industry and the English language has been a major selling point. English language teaching accounts for about 9% of Malta's total income from tourism and the sector employs some 1,500 teachers and support staff, but Feltom, the federation of English language schools in Malta, has already warned that the recent bad press may have serious consequences...

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