Over 4,000 students have requested to transfer to schools in Malé from the rest of the country between the years of 2020 and 2024.
Statistics published by the Ministry of Education yesterday revealed that a total of 4,443 students have requested transfers to schools in Malé, the capital of Maldives, from other islands within the country from 2020 to present.
School transfer requests between the years 2020 and 2024:
- 2020 to 2021: 480 students
- 2021 to 2022: 716 students
- 2022 to 2023: 780 students
- 2022 to 2024: 1,500 students
Additional information also indicate that another 967 students from other areas of Maldives have applied for transfers to schools in Malé for the new academic year beginning on May 26, 2024.
This includes:
- LKG (Lower Kindergarten): 68 students
- UKG (Upper Kindergarten): 30 students
- Grade 1: 171 students
- Grade 2: 81 students
- Grade 3: 92 students
- Grade 4: 69 students
- Grade 5: 96 students
- Grade 6: 87 students
- Grade 7: 87 students
- Grade 8: 103 students
- Grade 9: 55 students
- Grade 10: 28 students Education Ministry said that it has received 790 applications from parents requesting student transfers to schools in Malé from local islands.
The Ministry also released another set of statistics regarding Malé schools, indicating that a total of 2,163 requests were made for new enrollments in Grade 1 at Malé schools. This includes 1,192 application forms from Malé and 171 forms from other areas within the atolls.
Additionally, another 1,158 requests were also submitted to the Ministry to switch from one school to another in Male'.
Maldives is geographically spread across 20 administrative atolls and nearly 2,000 islands, of which only 188 are inhabited. The population of some of these islands can be as low as 77 people according to the 2022 census. This geographical constraint has been described as a significant "barrier to providing equal access to education for every child." As a result, some schools within the atolls have adopted multi-level and virtual teaching classrooms, according to a 2019 education sector analysis conducted in the Maldives.
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