It is a thought-provoking question posed by Rector Juanito Camilleri, who would like to see a long-term strategy for the whole of higher education.
"There must be a strategic plan and you must let the university react to the reality. You may find that this campus is more than enough, thank you very much. But our unique selling point would be different. We would direct our energy in other directions and we would downsize some undergraduate programmes as we would not need to be their exclusive provider," he said.
"At the end of the day, the debate about where the university is going has got to be part and parcel of where we see Malta going. If we really want to reach certain benchmarks on the number of students going into higher education, if we want to diversify our income streams by having foreign students, if we want to enhance our R&D base, then direction must be given."
The university infrastructure is creaking, having stretched from 700 students to 10,000. It runs about 115 undergraduate degree programmes and about 85 postgraduate ones. The administrative structure is sorely pressed. There is also a major problem with space.
"We might be able to survive in these confines for a while, but certainly not indefinitely. We can stretch and build and cram but this is a patchy approach and will not get us through further down the line.
"If we say that this is not a 400-year-old university but a 400-years-young university and we see it in the context of its importance in the economic development of the country, then we have to look ahead.
"If we really want to attain a better standing in R&D then we have to employ more people dedicated predominantly to research and not to teaching. That means more space and more labs.
"If we are going to start attracting more PhDs and post-doctoral students, then we need more space.
"How are we going to do this? We are boxed in by the town, the hospital, the valley and the sports facilities. Some people say build upwards but we can only do that to an extent as the buildings were not designed for additional floors. We are also very limited as to the time when we can carry out construction projects.
"We could split the campus, leaving Tal-Qroqq as the undergraduate school and creating a postgraduate school elsewhere. To me, that is not ideal. You could move individual faculties but this is also not ideal.
"And where would another campus be? I have already started working with government to try to transfer the old university building in Valletta to the University of Malta. It has lots of other agencies in it but I would love to have that resource, ideally to be concentrated on international programmes, making the most of the flair and vision of the Foundation for International Studies.
"There is also the question as to whether we should consider a completely new campus," he said.
However, he also considered other options:
"Maybe the university will not need to expand because there are other institutions. It might be that the university does more joint ventures with external agencies or universities and there could be satellite campuses as a result of their different nature. But the model has to be discussed and agreed upon because one thing that we cannot do is leave issues undiscussed and then wake up one day and find that we have a crisis.
"These are all possibilities. I am not saying that this or that should be done. But the options should be discussed. What you cannot do is try to fit 20,000 students into a university that is already clogged with just 10,000. You cannot bring foreign students to a university whose canteen facilities were built for a university of 700.
"There has to be a strategy for the university and one which is properly thought through. And it would need significant investment if we are to make it in the future.
"Even the financing of the university has to be talked about in the long term. How can I plan ahead based on annual budgets? How do you build a strategy looking 15 years in the future on an annual budget?" he complained.
"It has come to the point where the university cannot be sustainable unless we start a debate. We cannot on the one hand say that we are behind on the Lisbon criteria and then on the other hand say that this is a teaching university and should be there to simply produce undergraduates.
"Of course we should be doing that but we should be doing far more. We should be preparing students not only to be employees but to be tomorrow's employers. And that is where we are missing the point. If our reality is based on small companies then those small companies need innovation and entrepreneurship and flexibility. But we have to see whether this is the message that we are sending our students from their first days of schooling."
Part of the debate centres on other providers and to what extent they fulfil future higher education demand. One of these is undoubtedly Mcast. Prof. Camilleri believes that there is clearly a role for both the college and the university. The college might even start giving degrees in the future and there is talk underway on creating a bridge for students to get into university from the college. The important thing is to ensure that someone who joins a degree course would not get frustrated and have to give up, he said.
"I was the person who set up this communication but I do not want to delude individuals into thinking that there are quick fixes.
"At the end of the day, there is a spectrum of options there to cater for the aptitude of the individual. But it is wrong to assume that someone who does not do well academically at the age of 16 should be branded for life. This is all part of the concept of lifelong learning."
Mcast is not the only provider, however. There has also been a proliferation of private institutions, foreign universities and distance-learning programmes and Prof. Camilleri is concerned about equivalency issues.
"By all means let there be more institutions and more certifications but you have to know what the standards are. When you are liberalising, it is important to have a regulatory body which is well equipped, well financed and in a position to look at what is happening and to intervene. The regulatory aspect is an evolving process and the right initiatives have been started. We now have to beef them up as if you open the door before there are the right checks and balances, you would have chaos.
"For example, there are some institutes that are starting up, others that have not yet evolved. Others are avant garde and world class. There are some entities that claim to be international but the standards are not what one would like to see. All degree programmes should be looked at, including our own. You cannot rely on the fact that we are an established brand.
"I would like to see external agencies ensure that the organisations offering degree courses are doing so on a level playing field. Apparently there is some form of regulatory body planned but I am not sure how this would fit in with the National Commission for Higher Education, which has a role at looking at all these institutions which are coming in and making sure that we are comparing like with like in degree programmes.
"I think it is healthy for the university to be placed in an environment where it has to compete. Competition is healthy - I have seen it in telecommunications. There is obviously a downside but one must not forget the upside, which keeps you dynamic."
Prof. Camilleri said he would like to see even more international institutions coming to Malta, either working in partnership or in competition with the University of Malta, especially as they could aim at other markets like North Africa and the Middle East.
"I am very keen to establish, from an international dimension, bilateral and multilateral agreements with other universities on specific programmes. So rather than foreign universities coming to Malta to do their own thing, I am open to joint ventures on different programmes. This would be good because it would also enhance the context for the lecturers. We have small departments which are just three persons strong. Over the years, it can become incestuous, particularly if you get PhD students who are taught by the same two or three people. No matter how brilliant the individuals are, you are cloning them, creating individuals with the same frame of mind. So it would be good to integrate with other universities," he said.
The lack of a long-term strategy is having an impact on existing operations, like the satellite campus in Rome.
"I have been trying to find out more about this initiative and clearly there is much more we can do there. Over the past seven months I have critically reviewed the state of our administrative infrastructure here and it needs to be radically strengthened. The university is the largest employer and needs a strong HR department, a strong international relations department, a strong communications department. Despite the hard work of various individuals there is much to be done to strengthen our finance department and our ICT infrastructure. I am not going to mince my words. There are miles to be covered.
"So before we look at new initiatives like satellite campuses in other countries, we need to see that they can be taken to their logical maturity, which means that the home ground knows where it is going and has the infrastructure to get there."
"There must be a strategic plan and you must let the university react to the reality. You may find that this campus is more than enough, thank you very much. But our unique selling point would be different. We would direct our energy in other directions and we would downsize some undergraduate programmes as we would not need to be their exclusive provider," he said.
"At the end of the day, the debate about where the university is going has got to be part and parcel of where we see Malta going. If we really want to reach certain benchmarks on the number of students going into higher education, if we want to diversify our income streams by having foreign students, if we want to enhance our R&D base, then direction must be given."
The university infrastructure is creaking, having stretched from 700 students to 10,000. It runs about 115 undergraduate degree programmes and about 85 postgraduate ones. The administrative structure is sorely pressed. There is also a major problem with space.
"We might be able to survive in these confines for a while, but certainly not indefinitely. We can stretch and build and cram but this is a patchy approach and will not get us through further down the line.
"If we say that this is not a 400-year-old university but a 400-years-young university and we see it in the context of its importance in the economic development of the country, then we have to look ahead.
"If we really want to attain a better standing in R&D then we have to employ more people dedicated predominantly to research and not to teaching. That means more space and more labs.
"If we are going to start attracting more PhDs and post-doctoral students, then we need more space.
"How are we going to do this? We are boxed in by the town, the hospital, the valley and the sports facilities. Some people say build upwards but we can only do that to an extent as the buildings were not designed for additional floors. We are also very limited as to the time when we can carry out construction projects.
"We could split the campus, leaving Tal-Qroqq as the undergraduate school and creating a postgraduate school elsewhere. To me, that is not ideal. You could move individual faculties but this is also not ideal.
"And where would another campus be? I have already started working with government to try to transfer the old university building in Valletta to the University of Malta. It has lots of other agencies in it but I would love to have that resource, ideally to be concentrated on international programmes, making the most of the flair and vision of the Foundation for International Studies.
"There is also the question as to whether we should consider a completely new campus," he said.
However, he also considered other options:
"Maybe the university will not need to expand because there are other institutions. It might be that the university does more joint ventures with external agencies or universities and there could be satellite campuses as a result of their different nature. But the model has to be discussed and agreed upon because one thing that we cannot do is leave issues undiscussed and then wake up one day and find that we have a crisis.
"These are all possibilities. I am not saying that this or that should be done. But the options should be discussed. What you cannot do is try to fit 20,000 students into a university that is already clogged with just 10,000. You cannot bring foreign students to a university whose canteen facilities were built for a university of 700.
"There has to be a strategy for the university and one which is properly thought through. And it would need significant investment if we are to make it in the future.
"Even the financing of the university has to be talked about in the long term. How can I plan ahead based on annual budgets? How do you build a strategy looking 15 years in the future on an annual budget?" he complained.
"It has come to the point where the university cannot be sustainable unless we start a debate. We cannot on the one hand say that we are behind on the Lisbon criteria and then on the other hand say that this is a teaching university and should be there to simply produce undergraduates.
"Of course we should be doing that but we should be doing far more. We should be preparing students not only to be employees but to be tomorrow's employers. And that is where we are missing the point. If our reality is based on small companies then those small companies need innovation and entrepreneurship and flexibility. But we have to see whether this is the message that we are sending our students from their first days of schooling."
Part of the debate centres on other providers and to what extent they fulfil future higher education demand. One of these is undoubtedly Mcast. Prof. Camilleri believes that there is clearly a role for both the college and the university. The college might even start giving degrees in the future and there is talk underway on creating a bridge for students to get into university from the college. The important thing is to ensure that someone who joins a degree course would not get frustrated and have to give up, he said.
"I was the person who set up this communication but I do not want to delude individuals into thinking that there are quick fixes.
"At the end of the day, there is a spectrum of options there to cater for the aptitude of the individual. But it is wrong to assume that someone who does not do well academically at the age of 16 should be branded for life. This is all part of the concept of lifelong learning."
Mcast is not the only provider, however. There has also been a proliferation of private institutions, foreign universities and distance-learning programmes and Prof. Camilleri is concerned about equivalency issues.
"By all means let there be more institutions and more certifications but you have to know what the standards are. When you are liberalising, it is important to have a regulatory body which is well equipped, well financed and in a position to look at what is happening and to intervene. The regulatory aspect is an evolving process and the right initiatives have been started. We now have to beef them up as if you open the door before there are the right checks and balances, you would have chaos.
"For example, there are some institutes that are starting up, others that have not yet evolved. Others are avant garde and world class. There are some entities that claim to be international but the standards are not what one would like to see. All degree programmes should be looked at, including our own. You cannot rely on the fact that we are an established brand.
"I would like to see external agencies ensure that the organisations offering degree courses are doing so on a level playing field. Apparently there is some form of regulatory body planned but I am not sure how this would fit in with the National Commission for Higher Education, which has a role at looking at all these institutions which are coming in and making sure that we are comparing like with like in degree programmes.
"I think it is healthy for the university to be placed in an environment where it has to compete. Competition is healthy - I have seen it in telecommunications. There is obviously a downside but one must not forget the upside, which keeps you dynamic."
Prof. Camilleri said he would like to see even more international institutions coming to Malta, either working in partnership or in competition with the University of Malta, especially as they could aim at other markets like North Africa and the Middle East.
"I am very keen to establish, from an international dimension, bilateral and multilateral agreements with other universities on specific programmes. So rather than foreign universities coming to Malta to do their own thing, I am open to joint ventures on different programmes. This would be good because it would also enhance the context for the lecturers. We have small departments which are just three persons strong. Over the years, it can become incestuous, particularly if you get PhD students who are taught by the same two or three people. No matter how brilliant the individuals are, you are cloning them, creating individuals with the same frame of mind. So it would be good to integrate with other universities," he said.
The lack of a long-term strategy is having an impact on existing operations, like the satellite campus in Rome.
"I have been trying to find out more about this initiative and clearly there is much more we can do there. Over the past seven months I have critically reviewed the state of our administrative infrastructure here and it needs to be radically strengthened. The university is the largest employer and needs a strong HR department, a strong international relations department, a strong communications department. Despite the hard work of various individuals there is much to be done to strengthen our finance department and our ICT infrastructure. I am not going to mince my words. There are miles to be covered.
"So before we look at new initiatives like satellite campuses in other countries, we need to see that they can be taken to their logical maturity, which means that the home ground knows where it is going and has the infrastructure to get there."