University legal notice ‘risks damaging educational reputation’

A legal notice that has lowered the required criteria for educational institutions to get classified as universities has placed Malta’s educational reputation at risk, Opposition MP George Pullicino warned.

“The Malta Union of Teachers have said that the legal notice gives a lot of weight to commercial potential to the detrimental of academic standards,” Pullicino, the PN’s education spokesperson said in his parliamentary adjournment. “They also warned that Malta will operate a definition of ‘university’ that is different from most countries, therefore putting the country’s academic reputation at risk”.

He added that the MUT were expecting the government to commission a study to ensure that the University of Malta, MCAST and ITS will not lose foreign students to private institutions.

He also said that he expected “more sense and professionalism” from the National Commission for Further and Higher Education in this debate. NCFHE Martin Scicluna has vehemently denied that the legal notice will lower educational standards.

The controversial legal notice published in May allows the NCFHE to invoke "national interest" as a criterion through which it can legally recognize an educational institute as a university.

The new amendments also reduce the number of minimum fields, from six to four, in which programmes leading to higher diplomas, Bachelors’ and Masters’ degrees are offered. They also remove the requirement for universities to have at least four fields in which doctorate programmes are offered.

The law was tweaked three days after the government signed a Heads of Agreement with Jordanian construction firm Sadeen Group through for the latter to construct the private 'American University of Malta’. Education Minister Evarist Bartolo has insisted that the legal notice wasn’t introduced to satisfy Sadeen and that institutions’ programmes  would still have to undergo a rigorous and independent quality-screening test.

However, the Opposition have filed a parliamentary motion, calling on the government to reverse the legal notice.

In his adjournment, Pullicino criticised the government’s “administrative short-sightedness” and “lack of planning” in the education sector. He said that the government is trying to combat school absenteeism simply by imposing fiscal measures on parents of children who play truant, whereas it should be tackling absenteeism from its roots at the students’ homes and focusing on integrating students who have fallen behind after long periods of absenteeism.

He questioned why the government decided to close down the Mater Dei Special School for personalized learning in Msida only to decide to re-open it a year later, and pointed out that the Alternative Learning Programme could be leading to students perfectly capable of sitting for their O’levels choosing not to do so.  

He also argued that only 30 teachers are benefitting from the government’s budgetary measure through which teachers will be able to go on a year-long paid sabbatical to further their academic achievements.

“That’s less than 1% of the 4,000 teachers in Malta,” Pullicino said. “This is an example of how not much lies beneath the government’s marketing and nice covers.”

He also had harsh words for MCAST’s decision to issue an external call for the new post of director of the Institute of Engineering and Transport, an institute that will be formed by merging two institutes.

“Each of those two institutes already have their own director, so why did MCAST issue an external call without first assessing those two experienced people?” Pullicino questioned. Quoting the MUT, he said that it should have been the other way round- with an internal call preceding an external one.

“It appears to have been a move to replace experienced people with people close to the Labour Party.”