Tapping into a 4.5 million student market

The government has managed to attract this investment within the electoral mandate to introduce pluralism in tertiary education. We have done this by attracting Barts Medical and Dental School to our islands and we have other international higher education institutions applying for University status. 17% of our students already attend non-state tertiary institutions. Several US and UK universities already deliver programmes locally through (or jointly with) the University of Malta and other local institutions.

At the same time, my government has and will continue helping the University of Malta to develop and expand. In fact, since being elected in 2013, this Labour government has given record increases to the UoM budget. In 2013, we had to dig into the country’s finances to make up a shortfall of €4.5 million to meet the University wage bill, something that the previous administration had not catered for in its outgoing financial estimates. In the following year we approved a budget increase of around €9 million and the budget for this year has again increased to €70,680,000 – a percentage increase of 28.16% on the 2013 budget. 

The PN are systemically trying to discredit the American University of Malta and the role of DePaul University. This University is the largest Catholic University and the 12th largest private not-for-profit University in the United States. Neither DePaul University nor any government spokesman has ever said that DePaul will be opening a ‘branch’ in Malta.

This was made up by opponents of the American University of Malta.

But DePaul are proud to be associated with this exciting project and they have been contracted to provide initial curriculum materials for five bachelor degrees, one MBA and four programmes at doctoral level. DePaul University is willing to carry on providing “consultative academic support” in the form of “further programme development, policies and academic structure development”. Their support in this project was made clear when four top officials from Chicago came over to Malta for the actual signing of the launch of the AUM.

The Sadeen Group has been described as a ‘construction company’. But the truth is that the Group is an investment company with many varied interests, including those in education.

The PN spokesperson on education, Therese Comodini-Cachia has claimed that I did not follow the correct procedures in the publishing of the legal notice. Obviously, since she is based in Brussels she was oblivious that I presented this legal notice in Parliament on the 11th May at 6:30 pm. She also claims that the legal notice issued recently reduces the standards of the education system.

This cannot be further from the truth. The new legal notice provides changes in the eligibility criteria and allows for the inclusion of a new licence category, namely tuition centres. As it stood, the previous legal notice did not cater for all the providers beyond compulsory education.  It practically excluded all universities other than the UoM.

Furthermore the legal notice does not change anything in the rigorous process of accreditation. The Quality Assurance Committee has not and nor will it take any shortcuts in the accreditation evaluation of the programmes submitted by the American University of Malta. For years, I have been criticising the granting of fake degrees by entities run by individuals (some of them very close to the PN).

A lot is being said about the land in the Zonqor area of Marsaskala. As the Prime Minister has already stated, we are prepared to consider an alternative area if one is available. All this concern on the part of the Nationalist opposition about the usage of ODZ areas for education seems to be newly acquired.

The PN in government had utilised almost three million square metres of ODZ land which was used for various reasons. Of these 45,000 sq.mtrs. were used for St Dorothy’s School in Zebbug,  around 71,000 sq.mtrs. for three private schools, 30,000 sq.mtrs. for Poligas, 21,000 for the Seabank Hotel and another 8,470 for the Riviera Hotel. But the most glaring example of allocation of ODZ areas was the 135,245 sq.mtrs. utilised for the Smart City project at Kalkara.  The government of the day did not even conduct a site selection exercise.

The government is insisting that this mega-project is meant for the south because it has promised to regenerate the south. Such an investment will bring added welfare to the south of the island and the campus of the new American University will help turn the south into a thriving area.

The development of Universities in similar areas in Britain, America and other European countries has attracted a whole new constituency of people and micro-cultures.  One such example is Central Saint Martins of the University of the Arts, London. Their new premises behind King’s Cross station has helped transform the area radically. This zone, formerly deemed to be a low-life area of London, is now full of cafes, restaurants, students and their families.

There are 4.5 million students following courses in overseas campuses. Malta and Gozo can tap into this huge international education sector. We can emulate the success we have in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language sector, where we attracted over 77,000 last year.