PN told that University must become more skills-based

Businessmen today told the Nationalist Party that tertiary education must become more skills-based to reflect the realities of the modern market.

“Shop retailers are going through a tough time and let’s be real, it’s not because the government has changed but because of the challenges faced by the internet,” 6pm founder Ivan Bartolo said.

“Shop retailers have streetwise skills that can be transferred to other professions such as systems analysts, project managers, and business analysts- we don’t have enough of these people in Malta," the IT company owner said.

He was speaking at the second session of  the first national convention organised by the PN to listen to the ideas of people outside of the party.

 “Education is the basis of everything. Going to university is now a right where it was once a luxury. Yet our current University education is not good enough. The university needs to stop trying to create commodity skills but specialised skills.”  

He warned that a lot of small companies cannot benefit from EU funds, simply because they cannot afford to spend between 40,000-100,000 euro to apply for them. He also suggested that banks should not only offer money to people wishing to start up a business but lawyers paid by the government who can advise them on marketing and business-related issues.

Recent MEP candidate Helga Ellul said that University graduates find it challenging to find a job, as employers seek experience that university doesn’t offer.

“Why doesn’t University start offering some more hands-on, practical credits for all credits in collaboration with private industries like MCAST does?” Ellul asked. “We have the young talent, just not the investment in it. We also need to instill a mentality of success in our youth, that they must rise again when they fall. They can’t remain isolated in Malta either.”  

Economist Marisa Xuereb challenged the long summer holidays in Malta’s education system, insisting that “such long summer holidays means that our children’s education is largely dependant on their parents ‘ commitment to educate them.”

She added "it also means that it is hard for both parents to maintain full-time jobs. We need a radical change in the way schools operate.”

The economist also advised the PN to put the private sector at the centre of their policies.

“The public sector has grown substantially under this government,” Xuereb said. “The challenge is to expand the private workforce and shrink the public one, as public employees’ salaries come largely out of taxpayers’ pockets.”

“It’s a shame that Malta’s let the manufacturing sector deteriorate, because it’s hurt our competitiveness. Malta isn’t branded properly either. It is known beyond our shores solely as a touristic destination, when we should be promoting it as a place of investment for research and manufacturing.”

CEO of the Malta Cooperatives Federation Rolan Micallef Attard said that small businesses cannot hope to compete with multi-national companies that globalization and the Internet has put them in contact with.

“Governments must respond to this problem by creating new niches of work. Co-operative enterprises in sectors such as banking, health and community are the way to go. They have been proven successful in other European countries but they haven’t really caught on in Malta,” Micallef Attard said. 

“Political parties, unions and the church need to join together and help change the mentality of people into a mentality of champions, to go the extra mile, to take that tough decision.”