27,853 foreign students attended language courses at English Language Teaching schools (ELT) last year - 68.9% more than in 2020 but still far below the 83,600 in 2019, the last full year before COVID-19. The majority of students came from Italy (17.6%), followed by France (14.9%) and Poland (12.2%). Overall, 76.3% of the students originated from an EU country, according to official data. Most were aged between 18 and 25. Students aged 50 numbered just 2,295. Girls accounted for 58.1% of the entire student population. July was the busiest month for local schools accounting for 26.8% of the annual total. June and October followed at 20% and 11% respectively. The most popular course was ‘General English: Standard’, taken up by 17,747, or 63.7% of the students. This was followed by the ‘Intensive English’ course, with 21.5% of students. The average length of stay of the students was 4.9 weeks. With an average of 13.4 weeks, students from China recorded the highest number of student weeks, followed by Colombian and South Korean students with average student weeks at 12.1 and 11.2, respectively In 2021, teaching and academic staff numbered 475, with the largest proportion (31.6%)...
