MCAST to occupy 130 tumoli

Education Minister Louis Galea yesterday unveiled plans for the lavish new Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology at Corradino.

The Lm50 million-project was announced by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi on Sunday but details were only released yesterday.

The new project will draw together all the institutes on one campus. Currently, five of the nine institutes are at Corradino and four are located in Naxxar, Mosta, Msida and between Qormi and Luqa.

Dr Galea said the government had been working on this project for over a year and it would be developed in six phases.

The current institutes would remain operational and works would start on areas where new institutes would be built. Eventually they will all be housed in the new buildings.

The master plan goes into detail about furniture and lab equipment. The plans have taken into consideration the micro climate of the area and the buildings have been designed in a way to provide shade and shelter.

Dr Galea said it was difficult to give a precise date when works will begin and end. "Schools are taking two years to be completed fully. The college has to remain open... but there is no reason why work cannot start on more than one phase of the project at the same time," he said. Dr Galea said the government had shown dynamism and vision in reopening MCAST and the time had now come to invest more and develop MCAST further.

"In the educational sector, one can't rest on one's laurels and one needs to continuously strive to better results and the quality of education provided," he said.

Dr Galea said he wanted the university and MCAST to be the two pillars of education in Malta and to interact together to continue to provide leaders in all fields.

"MCAST should be a statement of excellence in quality and results will speak for themselves," Dr Galea said.

The aim of getting all institutes on one campus was for students to get a broader knowledge in different fields. Having the institutes adjacent to an industrial estate will enable the institutes to interact with it so that the estate would become a "learning estate". Talks are underway with the IT ministry and Malta Enterprise about the matter.

MCAST principal and CEO Frank Edwards said the strategic plan on which the institute had embarked has yielded results.

The number of full-time students had shot up from 1,559 in 2001 to close to 4,000 in 2005 and were projected to increase to almost 6,000 by 2008. The number of part-timers had seen a similar increase.

"Everything we've done is telling us this is the right thing to do. We have consulted Malta Enterprise, the Federation of Industry, the Malta Council for Science and Technology and other bodies and drew up tailor-made policies which work," he said.

Emanuel Attard, MCAST's chief administrative officer, said a master plan for the new MCAST site had been devised following a number of studies and a number of options were considered. Careful choice of materials has been made to make the best use of the area, which spans over 130 tumoli of land.

MCAST's president of the board of governors, Paul Attard, said the Lisbon Agenda of making the EU the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy, capable of sustainable economic growth, with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, was also Malta's goal and MCAST was a major contributor towards reaching these aims.

The master plan for the project was launched in the presence of students as well as representatives of constituted bodies.