Negative impact of EU membership on University

University administrators and academic staff complain that the University of Malta is not being provided with adequate funds to keep up with ever increasing costs and demands to provide high quality teaching for a growing number of students. The University has to operate within a very tight budget.

Life is much more difficult for the Junior College which cannot make ends meet and manages to survive only with funds pumped into it from the budget originally allocated to the University.

A few weeks ago University lecturers were very worried that the money voted for Academic Work Resources had run out. I tabled a question in Parliament (PQ 37,906) to address these concerns. Education Minister Louis Galea replied that Lm733,772 were spent on Academic Work resources for the financial year January-December 2001. This sum was estimated to have gone down by 11% to Lm653,000 during 2002. This year it will drop further - to Lm540,000, a drop of 26% in two years. Competing for these decreasing resources is an academic staff of 680.

The financial constraints on the University will become tighter if Malta were to join the European Union. To meet the cost of EU membership on the University, Government would have to increase taxes or public debt to finance higher spending on staff and facilities at the University to cater not just for Maltese students, but also for students from EU countries.

A few years ago the University appointed a committee co-ordinated by Professor Josef Lauri "to examine and report on the likely impact on the University arising from Malta's admission to the EU." According to the report one of the benefits of membership would be the right of students from EU states to study in Malta.

One of the serious shortcomings of the Lauri report is that it does not assess the impact of EU membership on the Junior College. This college is barely surviving on a starvation diet and is finding it very difficult to meet its present commitments, let alone future ones. The Lauri Commission was set up before the Malta College for Arts Science and Technology (MCAST) was born and so it could not assess the impact of EU membership on MCAST. But MCAST is still not in a position to provide full access to all those of our young people who would like to join it. It is definitely not in a position to offer posts to EU citizens who would have an equal right to attend its courses.

Limiting opportunities for Maltese students

The report states: "More students mean increased expenses and a thinning of resources since these have to be shared out to meet broader demands. This is true for the University, its Faculties and the Departments, which are effectively being discouraged from attracting more students for want of adequate resources. Following accession to the EU, the situation may become worse because, if the present system of funding persists, EU students will, like their Maltese counterparts, not be charged a fee.

"This will mean that the University of Malta will be positively discouraged from marketing its courses in Europe and from trying to attract European students. In this way the University of Malta will be placed in a situation which is quite the opposite of the trend taking place abroad. In the long term, it will have a negative effect on the University's efforts and ability to maintain standards and could lead to our University becoming a provincial outcast rather than an international centre of learning."

The Lauri Committee also examines the effect of the right of students from EU member states to study at the University of Malta: "...because of our University's long history, location and use of the English language there is bound to be a considerable interest on the part of European students to read for a degree in Malta, especially if they are not charged any tuition fees. It is difficult to quantify the number of students that are likely to be attracted, but if the situation were to remain as it is today, the Committee feels that the University could have a few hundred European students applying for full-time degree courses within five to six years from entry."

The committee insists that the University has to invest in physical and human resources to be able to meet the increased number of students from EU countries coming to study at the University of Malta. In the last four years the Nationalist government has not increased the University budget to enable it to meet the cost of EU membership.

The consequence of this is made clear by the committee: "It is clear that the admission of an unlimited number of European students could produce serious problems to the University's infrastructure. It may therefore be necessary to take action to limit the intake to a desired level. The imposition of a numerus clausus is one way of ensuring this but it could give rise to a highly undesirable situation where suitable qualified Maltese nationals are denied admission to the University of Malta and have to emigrate to receive their tertiary education."

The committee recommends: "A more realistic way of limiting numbers from overseas is either by raising entry requirements or by raising fees. In both cases Maltese students would be similarly affected since EU students will have the right to equal access to higher education as Maltese students."

The committee warns that "even if no intake-reducing measures are taken, the influx of any number of EU students would still have an impact on the Maltese student who would have a lesser share of University's resources (laboratories, canteen, library, lecture rooms, contact with lecturers, etc.). With regard to the level of student intake it will be necessary for each department to carry out an exercise to establish the number of students it will be able to handle (a) with present resources and (b) with enhanced resources. On the basis of this information the Central Administration will be in a position to decide whether to consider the introduction of a numerus clausus across the board or only in certain given areas.

"This exercise will also need to involve the Library, the canteen, lecture halls and any other common facilities so that an overall maximum carrying capacity will be established."

EU citizens competing for University posts

The Lauri Committee then considers the implications of University tuition fees: "To date, all international students, including European Union students at the University of Malta are paying tuition fees. If on accession, the University maintains the fees for European students then Maltese students will also need to be charged fees or alternatively, as has already been indicated above, European students cannot be charged fees."

The committee goes on to recommend that if fees are to be set, they "should reflect the status of the University within the range of universities in Europe. If they are set at an unrealistically high level, then there is the risk that the University is viewed as not giving good value for money. If they are set at too low a level, then this might give out a poor and false impression of our students and not only would a higher number of applicants be attracted but also that the majority of these would not be the quality students that the University would doubtlessly wish to attract."

The committee also considers the impact of EU graduates seeking employment in Malta. Although it "does not expect a significant influx of graduate foreigners... a few might be tempted to apply for university jobs as a start to their academic career which they will then pursue elsewhere." The committee calls on the University "to be more careful as to how it awards its employees post-graduate scholarships, bearing in mind that foreigners will be competing for University posts on an equal footing."

Having said that, the committee recommends the further internationalisation of the University's academic staff and feels that "a 10% foreign representation on each faculty and institute is a desideratum to be aimed for during the current decade."

The contents of the Lauri Committee report have been concealed from the public, in the interest not of our children, but of those whose agenda is to portray EU membership as starry and glittering, like a glossy advert which does not tell the whole story and hides the undesirable effects of EU membership on our University and our children.