Lecturers fear loss of autonomy

University of Malta academics fear the Education Ministry's plans to regulate higher education institutions may impinge on the university's autonomy, giving the government leeway to dictate how it should operate.

The government announced in the budget that it was setting up a National Commission for Higher Education (NCHE) to advise on planning, development and the administration of higher education, mainly with a view to increasing student uptake and provide a broader skills base for the country.

The plan was outlined in a report dated October 2005, setting out the ministry's proposals for the commission's role and functioning. Education Minister Louis Galea announced earlier this month that a designate committee would precede the commission, which should be up and running by mid-2006 with a permanent secretariat supporting it.

In its reactions sent to the government on December 6, the University of Malta Academic Staff Association (UMASA), which represents university lecturers, opposed key proposals made in the document, warning against the "financial and utilitarian" approach of the ministry's plan.

UMASA said it was "extremely worrying" that the members sitting on the NCHE were to be appointed by the minister and would be answerable to the minister.

"Is the objective to reduce the university to a government department?" the academics asked, insisting that the university rector and an academic staff representative should sit on the commission.

An emphasis on the need to retain the autonomy enjoyed by the University of Malta is made throughout the eight-page document which reacts to the report.

But it is most clearly spelled out halfway through the recommendations, when UMASA states that in all its functions and operations, the NCHE should "in no way infringe on the administrative and academic autonomy of tertiary education institutions".

UMASA identified "sharp contrasts" between recommendations made by the European Commission in April 2005 to avoid the over-regulation of universities and the proposals made in a section of the NCHE document called Strategic Oversight.

The NCHE document holds that the government must establish whether the country is truly getting the best value for the investment made in higher education, whether there are gaps between disciplines and study programmes which are important for the country but which are not available, if there are overlaps or redundancies in courses and whether or not respective programmes are being run cost-effectively.

What UMASA is mainly opposed to, however, is a specific clause in the report questioning whether there are "far too many" contact hours dedicated to traditional lecturing methods and if better cost-efficient education technologies may be used instead.

"Is the NCHE going to dictate the 'contact hours dedicated to traditional lecturing methods'? Is it going to dictate 'the academic and practical content' of our programmes?" UMASA asked.

Besides the content of courses, academics also expressed concerns about operations and funding methods spelled out in the ministry's proposals.

UMASA said that although the university "should be judged and held accountable", the proposal that "funding must be directed at programmes and their outputs" and that the government should "prioritise funding by ensuring that additional funds voted to an institution do filter down to the programmes they were intended for" impinged directly on the institution's autonomy.

The university should be given an overall direction by the government and be adequately funded to meet the agreed targets "but there should be no meddling in the way the university operates", UMASA said.

The association expressed dismay that the government has not firmly committed itself to increase funding for tertiary education for Malta to catch up with its European counterparts, adding that the NCHE should implement a cost-based formula funding method by the first six months of its operation.

UMASA noted that "against the advice of the Chalmers report" which the planned NCHE stems from, the government had reformed the student stipends "without looking at the bigger picture of funding for higher educations institutions".