Proctors' dilemma

Eventually it became clear that there was a widespread effort to bury the issue. Repeated requests in parliament about the problem were ignored. When it transpired that the opposition had a copy of the report which discussed the matter, the minister of education held a press conference to claim that the report was all for the best in the world. When Labour's spokesperson on education held a counter press conference, his statements were again buried by the pro-government media.

Finally, Sunday before last, I raised the matter during Labour's mass meeting in Birkirkara. It all goes back to the findings of a commission headed by Prof. Josef Lauri some three years back, analysing the impact of EU full membership on the university.

Now to be fair to Prof. Lauri, I should say from the outset that his report is totally faithful to the methodology followed by a plethora of reports discussing the impact of membership on different sectors of our society. It starts and ends with the dogma that the European Union is a many splendoured thing, and that if we join it, days of wine and roses will follow.

However, in one part of the report, the discussion covers the impact on the university set-up should students from EU countries come to study here. The report confirms that such students would have the same right as their Maltese counterparts not to pay tuition fees. Yet one strategy that the university has followed was to attract foreign students who paid fees, unlike Maltese students. Apparently, this allowed the university to bolster its shaky finances.

Should the system change, and European students become exempted from tuition fees, the university would be foolish to encourage foreign students to Malta. Its expenses would rise, at a time when revenues from foreign students would drop or cease.

In any event, possibly attracted by the fact that English is the language of instruction, European students would come to the university under the full membership scenario, their number rising, in some years' time, to a few hundreds.

It is obvious from the report that such a development would put great strain on the university's overstretched human and physical resources. The report mentions that among the solutions to be considered would be a restriction on the entry of new students, or the introduction of fees. Under both measures, Maltese students would be treated exactly like students from EU countries.

Now, one understands why this conclusion was carefully swaddled away from the public. For years, government propaganda has been that with full EU membership, opportunities galore for study and personal development would open up for Maltese students. Presumably, to fudge this point, the report relied on the assumption that there would be EU funds to help the university meet its running expenses as the few hundreds of students arrive from Europe.

Which is why we waited for the end of membership talks to check whether this miraculous outcome had been achieved, given that the government's negotiating team had been so forceful. Well no, the question was not resolved at all. It will be up to the university, from its own resources, to carry the increasing burden.

Unfortunately too, the university's finances have, over the years since the Lauri report, gone from bad to worse. They ran a deficit of some Lm1.5 million last year. So making the university face the problem out of its own budget would raise big dilemmas for the university's financial proctors, if they are in function.

Last week, the education minister and the PM were pressed to inform families what they intended to do about the issue. There was a lot of fumbling, which was curious coming from the prime minister, since he has lately accused Labour of not having read the agreements reached with the EU. Eventually the fudged reply came: there would be no restrictions on student entry; there would be no tuition fees; oh, and there would surely be funding available (from where? from the Maltese government?).

No doubt this refers to the PM's dog-eared slogan about "money no problem". (As it happens, not only Labour indulges in slogans; although when used to back the pro-membership case, such slogans angelically transmute themselves into metaphors.) Still, the reality is as follows: this year, operating funds for the university have been slashed, like they were last year.

The government which is blithely saying it will fund out of its - or rather, our - own pocket the increased expenses, is already, as of now, buckling under the strain. We can guess how this problem will be "solved": as restrictions on entry and/or tuition fees are imposed, they will tell families and young people that circumstances have changed.

For honesty's sake, the whole matter should have been given a full airing so that families and young people could review the implications and decide for themselves. That the government, plus its media and other allies, opted to keep the problem under wraps, or fudge it (vide The Times' editorial of the day before yesterday), is typical of how the negative impact of membership is being hidden from people.

One thing is certain: under partnership, this particular dilemma about future access to university education would not arise for proctors, families and young people.