Matriculation Certificate (Malta)
The Matriculation Certificate is a certificate awarded to post secondary students and the admission requirement of the University of Malta. It is based on the premise that students seeking admission to University are more likely to develop into mature persons if their education spans both the Humanities and the Science areas. Students are required to sit for six subjects from various areas in one session of the examination. The choice of subjects includes a language, a humanities or a business subject, mathematics or a science subject, and any other two subjects. The sixth subject is Systems of Knowledge, which is compulsory. Two of the subjects must be at Advanced level, three at Intermediate level and Systems of Knowledge, which is also rated as an Intermediate level subject. Similarly to the case of the SEC examination, a significant and consistent increase in registrations has been noted in the case of the Matriculation Certificate from 1309 candidates, when it was offered for the first time in 1997, to 2455 candidates in 2005.
The Matriculation Certificate examinations are equivalent to the British Advanced Level examinations.
In order for a student to be successfully awarded the Matriculation Certificate students must achieve the following:
A) Achieve a pass in at least groups 1,2 and 3. and B) Have a total of 44 points (using the below system)
Students must be awarded this certificate in order to be accepted into University of Malta. However, certain courses at University of Malta require specific subjects at specific grades (or better) to be admitted in these courses. This is the case in course such as Engineering, Medicine, Science subjects, Commerce and many others. The following website of the University of Malta (http://www.um.edu.mt/courses/) has the list of the said requirements.
Choice of Subjects
Subjects are divided into 4 groups. Each group representing Languages, Humanities, Sciences and Practical/Technical subjects. A student must choose one of each of the first three groups, and another two subjects chosen from any of the groups.
Group l: Maltese, Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian, Spanish;
Group 2: Accounting, Economics, Geography, History, Marketing, Philosophy,Psychology, Religious Knowledge, Sociology;
Group 3: Applied Mathematics (Mechanics), Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science*, Physics, Pure Mathematics;
Group 4: Art, Computing, Engineering Drawing, Graphical Communication, Home Economics and Human Ecology, Information Technology; Music;
Systems of Knowledge*.
* offered at Intermediate Level only
Grading
Grades are given from A-F, with A being the best, and F indicating a Fail. Each grade obtained gives the candidates a number of points, which when added up can be used to give an overall grade.
Advanced Level Intermediate Level Grade A - 30 grade points Grade A - 10 grade points Grade B - 24 grade points Grade B - 8 grade points Grade C - 18 grade points Grade C - 6 grade points Grade D - 12 grade points Grade D - 4 grade points Grade E - 6 grade points Grade E - 2 grade points.
After adding up the points, the following may be used to calculate the overall grade:
Grade A - 80 -100 grade points Grade B - 64 - 78 grade points Grade C - 44 - 62 grade points