Students' charter facing final senate hurdle

University students are hoping that a proposed charter laying down their rights and responsibilities will finally be adopted by the university after a tortuous journey during which the senate has put it at the bottom of its agenda for a year and a half or referred it back for further consultation with university officials.

The latest draft of the charter will now be discussed by the senate, the university's highest decision-making body, at a meeting to be held in a few days' time. The University Students Council (KSU), which has worked long and hard to get to this point, is keen for it to gain approval.

"We are ready to make quite a bit of fuss if it does not," said the KSU's education commissioner Anthony Camilleri, who has helped to draft the last version. "We are not willing to let it go back to the negotiating table. The rector has promised us that it will be implemented and we will feel betrayed if it is not. I do not know of a foreign university which does not have a students' charter," he added.

If approved, the charter will not be legally binding on the university, but "in the spirit of goodwill we would expect them to keep their end of the bargain," said Mr Camilleri.

The charter outlines the relationship between the students and the university by setting down what is expected of both of them and of the KSU (see box).

According to Jean-Paul De Lucca, a former KSU member who has had a big hand in the drafting, the council started working on it in 2000 and approved a first version, detailing students' rights, in March 2001.

After feedback from university officials and several deans, the draft was revised to include students' responsibilities. In October 2001 it was presented to the rector under the proposal that it be forwarded to the senate for approval.

However, it was agreed that in order to make the exercise a more participative one, the document would first be sent to all faculty boards for feedback before a decision at senate level was taken, Mr De Lucca recalled. Not all faculties responded.

Taking up the story, Justin Fenech, current KSU president, said that following further "discussion and postponements", the senate placed the charter as the last item for discussion on the agenda for their February 2002 meeting. The expected discussion did not take place. The same happened the following July.

In its September meeting, the senate decided that an ad hoc committee, made up of three academics and two students, should be set up to further analyse the document, and the committee functioned in an open and friendly manner.

It presented its report for senate consideration at its February 2003 meeting, but, much to the KSU's frustration, the charter was again placed at the bottom of the agenda and discussion on it postponed.

At the senate's April meeting it was decided that the charter (again the last item up for discussion) should be discussed by the rector, the registrar, the dean of the Faculty of Laws and a student representative to make sure that it would not be in conflict with university regulations and "because the university was not sure whether it could guarantee rights which are not up to it to guarantee", said Mr Fenech.

Towards the end of the last academic year it was decided that the charter should be redrafted to make it more user-friendly.

After further meetings with the university administration, the final version now awaits the senate's seal of approval at its September 23 meeting.

"It would be a historic date for our university," said Mr Fenech. "It's been a lengthy process but we're happy that now, through dialogue, we have come close to reaching an agreement."