| Summary: | Students’ dropout rates in Malta remain significantly high despite national and institutional efforts to address this issue. The purpose of this thesis is to give voice to critical student perspectives on a diverse set of issues that is typical of contemporary student life. Through their voices, I examine students’ experiences within Maltese Higher Vocational Institutions. This thesis uses a mixed methods approach (questionnaire, focus group and observational field notes) within an ethnographic case study framework, located within the two main Maltese Higher Vocational institutions - Malta College of Arts, Sciences and Technology and the Institute of Tourism Studies. The implications of the researcher’s insider status within one of these institutions is also discussed. The empirical research starts with an exploration of the current provision of student support services and moves onto an in-depth and wide ranging documentation of the myriad challenges that students currently face - academic, institutional, financial and emotional. By evidencing the volume and range of critique, the thesis aims to show, that these are not isolated or unique concerns and that they go to the heart of relationships between students, staff, administrators and management within any educational institution. It substantiates some of the students’ critique by drawing upon recent external audit reports for both institutions. It situates the findings within the critical literature calling for greater student participation in the design and delivery of education and related services. In doing so, it makes the case of transforming Maltese Higher Vocational Education into a student-centred educational enterprise which has the ability and willingness to view students as parents in education. The thesis therefore, also considers key concepts of student voice, student-centredness, personalised education and student partnership in education and problematises them.
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