|
The University-based Ghaqda tal-Malti has slammed the campus administration for its failure to respect the Maltese language.
Calling it a “pitiful situation”, the association’s President Joseph P. Borg wrote in the monthly newsletter that the national language was not respected at university, where almost all of the official and unofficial notices, lectures and signs were in English.
Promising to tackle the deficiencies at university, Borg said the situation demanded “a total overhaul which respected the Maltese people, so that it is truly bilingual”.
In the last years of the past century, Borg said, the association worked hard to give a Maltese face to university by working to name most of the halls and buildings after some of the best Maltese authors, including the Vassalli Atrium, Pjazzetta Dun Karm, and the halls named after Pietru Pawl Saydon, Temi Zammit, Francis Ebejer, Erin Serracino Inglott and the Mikiel Anton Vassalli Conference Centre.
But Borg added that the greatest challenge remains “that faced by our founding fathers” – the fact that the university was still ignoring Maltese in all its lectures, correspondence and publications.
“Today, added to these, there are also emails and websites,” he said, expressing his hope that the new Rector, Juanito Camilleri, would implement the vision he set out prior to his appointment – that of strengthening the nation’s identity and values.
|
