Scaling up development

The setting up of the National Commission for Education (NCHE) is clearly meant to scale up tertiary education. Investment in tertiary education has meant a dramatic growth not only in quantity but also in the quality of education. This has made it possible to develop areas to high standards, which up to some 20 years ago was unthinkable. These areas include key aspects in health care and information and communication technologies as well as in agriculture.

These developments have helped to improve workers in traditional sectors such as those in professions allied to health and also in agriculture, while ICT helped to point the way to defining new ways of doing things.

The setting up of the NCHE on its own will not automatically produce results. The commission will need to promote and sustain new approaches to realise the goals of increasing the number of tertiary education students while retaining the high standards reached.

The commission must expand the range of development activities and make existing activities more efficient. It needs to remove the fear of starting new programmes and face the challenge of opposing factors. Areas for which there is great demand, such as veterinary surgery, must no longer remain the Cinderella of our education system. Opportunities must be created for post-graduate education. Unnecessary hurdles must be removed, such as those created through new research and ethical committees and authorities, to enable those who wish to continue their studies in Malta to do so.

The commission will have to tackle both physical and cultural problems. There will be the need to work hard to provide more physical structures such as proper lecture rooms, teaching aids, computers and laboratories. It is also required to make some socio-political adaptation to develop new systems of education.

Various proposals were made on the setting up of the NCHE. Thirteen proposals were submitted to the Minister of Education by the University of Malta Academic Staff Association (UMASA). Their salient points are that the necessary reforms in higher education in terms of funding, full accountability and quality assurance should be undertaken without delay and that the administrative and academic autonomy of the University should be strengthened.

UMASA has also invited the government to note the European Commission's recommendations made earlier this year, particularly that "Europe must strengthen the three poles of its knowledge triangle: education, research and innovation. Universities are essential in all these three. Investing more and better in the modernisation and quality of universities is a direct investment in the future of Europe and Europeans."

We are all in agreement with this statement: Government, academics, and society at large. The bone of contention is how one is to achieve the goals mentioned in the most efficient and equitable manner. It is also assumed that although the new NCHE will act as a formal adviser and assessor to the Minister of Education, it would not serve as a screen to prevent the minister from listening to all those who have anything to say to enhance the development of education.

The doors of communication should not only remain open; the commission should act as a bridge between the University, other tertiary education institutions and the ministry itself. It certainly should not, as is feared by UMASA among others, dampen the autonomy of the University.

Finally, one must mention the mushrooming opportunities for taking up tertiary education through total or partial forms of correspondence. Some private organisations have supplemented or offered a choice to those who wish to take up their studies at foreign-based institutions.

The obvious example that comes to mind is the availability of several MBAs offered by reputable institutions in addition to that available through our university. These organisations, administered through local private entities, are now clamouring for equal footing probably meaning that students taking up studies provided by these entities should be provided with the same stipends as those attending the University of Malta or MCAST.

This is just one example of a claim that will have to be discussed by the NCHE. The NCHE is not meant to replace University Faculty Boards, Senate or Council. It will certainly help put forward the good work of these bodies to the minister. It would also transmit the minister's views which it considers of great benefit to society for careful consideration by the University authorities.

The NCHE may hold the carrot or the whip in the form of the purse to be able to reach its aims. The minister would therefore do well to make it crystal clear that the University's autonomy is to be retained and that the NCHE will act also as an intercessor and a guardian angel for the University with the Government. This will ensure the full co-operation of all concerned with the NCHE to the benefit of all.

It will be a magnificent achievement if NCHE, the University, MCAST and the Ministry would act as a team each contributing to the island's major resource: the education of its citizens. Let us not beat the battle drums when there is no cause for war.