The sorry state of education in Malta was evident again this week when the Freshers’ Week at the University sparked several controversies. Whether we will learn anything from them is doubtful, since in this country the emphasis invariably is on the fun to be had from engaging in accusations and mud-slinging rather than on thoughtful evaluation and reflection.

First off, was the usual polemic about the presence of businesses during the Freshers’ Week.  It was reported that betting companies, banks, and consultancy firms had taken up prime spots in the University of Malta’s quad, luring students to their corporate tents with freebies, arcade games, and competitions.

Now, having attended literally hundreds of seminars and conferences, both in Malta and abroad, I can assure you that the presence of profit-making companies in such events is absolutely routine.  In fact, probably a good three-quarters of the events I have attended would not have happened without corporate sponsorships.  Organising such events has become prohibitively expensive and private funds are the life-blood on which they depend.

As to students falling all over themselves to get free goodies, I do not see anything wrong in that.  Again, I assure you that I have seen plenty of professionals in London, Paris, and New York arriving at a conference venue and making their first bee-line to the commercial stands to get their daily freebie.  This frequently occurs again during coffee breaks.

What is wrong is that non-commercial stands are relegated to secondary locations and deprived of basic facilities, which seems to have happened to student organisations and NGOs which put up their stands. It was reported that more than 20 of them were squeezed into a single tent.  Mind you, they were given six fans, though somebody must have forgotten that one needs an electricity supply to make them work!

The Times of Malta, for example, reported that two female 20-year-old representatives of Betapsi, The Psychology Students Organisation, had been squirrelled away from the buzz of the main event. I would have thought that, given the ever-increasing incidence of mental health problems, not least among young people, their stand would have been put in the thick of it.

A better equilibrium

I feel that the University Students’ Council (Kunsill Studenti Universitarji – KSU), which organises the event, has got the balance totally wrong. It quite rightly needs commercial stands, but it should not allow them to predominate.  With the necessary dose of creativity, a better equilibrium can surely be achieved. In fact, if I were to have a say, I would make each of the corporate sponsors “adopt” a number of the student organisations and NGOs, the composition of the organisations rotating every year so that all would get a chance of being “adopted”.   

There’s nothing wrong in students being provided with free food, ring lights, tote bags, and branded bottles by commercial entities. Their stands also give students the opportunity to engage with potential employers. It is a fact that, because of the shortage of qualified labour, quite a few of the companies concerned have a strong self-interest in Freshers’ Week, when they recruit students to join them even while they study. Again, there’s nothing wrong in that. 

Another criticism I have of the current Freshers’ Week is that it appears to be primitive.  All I could find on the University’s web-site was a list of introductory orientation meetings for students with the academic staff of each faculty and a reference to unspecified social activities. I couldn’t find any reference to educational sessions, career workshops, and networking events for example, which are a standard staple of Freshers’ Week at foreign universities.

The Graffitti saga

The second polemic to engulf the week was the KSU’s decision to undermine Moviment Graffiti by taking their stand down because it would be promoting the right to abortion, after the KSU had already banned the Life Network Foundation from participating. 

On this occasion, there was unanimous condemnation of the KSU.  The Prime Minister, political parties, other student organisations, and other NGOs heavily criticised the decision and said it was an act of censorship for which there was no place in an academic institution.  Quite right.  KSU’s lame excuse was that the Freshers’ Week was not an adequate platform for a discussion on abortion to take place “with the gravitas it deserves”.

I do not believe that any discussions that take place in a University should be subject to any degree of gravitas.  I well remember student debates at the Oxford Union and at the University of East Anglia where no-hold-barred discussions were the order of the day.  That doesn’t mean that there weren’t some rules but they were rather basic and more often than not ignored in practice.  The lack of gravitas, if anything, helped make sure that the Union’s debates were a hot-bed of ideas.

Are these people serious?

The third polemic was triggered by comments made by the Minister of Finance to the Times of Malta in which he deplored the failure of the University to submit audited accounts for the last two years.  This was instrumentalised by the Opposition and a band of academics as an attack on the University’s autonomy.  Rubbish.

The University is quite rightly autonomous in its academic remit but it does not have any autonomy in finances; in practice it is largely reliant on public funds for both its recurrent and capital expenditure.  This year it is expected to get €94 million.  Nobody knows what its financial deficit was in the last two years and what it will be this year, following a deficit of €620,000 in 2021.  Its revenue of €25 million from foreign students’ tuition fees and other activities is probably less than a quarter of its total revenue.

The association of academics rushed to condemn the Minister’s statement.  Presumably the group includes some from the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, who teach their students all about financial governance and the importance of sound finances.  Some of them participate in radio discussions or write opinion pieces in which they criticise the government when it errs on financial matters.  Are these people serious?

No entity that receives public funds is entitled to run a coach and horses through its financial governance obligations. The fact that the University generates what the academic claim to be a value added of €123 million through its teaching does not entitle it to ignore sound financial practice.  Nor is it the case that it is entitled to spend without limits on recurrent expenditure, including academics’ salaries, and send the Government packing when it insists on budgeting transparency.

Minister Clyde Caruana was quite right to chastise the University.  If there was something I do not necessarily agree with in his interview with the Times of Malta was that the University should do more to attract foreign students.  While I believe that foreign students make a contribution to the University’s life, not least by making Maltese students less insular, the emphasis should be on increasing the number of Maltese tertiary students themselves.

Main photo: University of Malta