Parking at university

Another scholastic year has begun and to my shock I found out that the parking system at the University of Malta has changed radically. To introduce more "security" the students have to pay the consequence! A population of approximately 8,000 students was allocated a total of 643 parking places, according to the KSU website, while on the other hand university staff (this includes the academics as well as the administrative staff) were allocated a total of 922. I note that the total number of staff working at the University of Malta is much lower than the number of students currently attending.

On a rough calculation, I came to the conclusion that even if we students shared the trip to university with friends from the same course and neighbourhood, there would still not be enough parking places.

This is not to mention that the buses are packed because the bus route has changed to first go round to the hospitals before the university. The buses will therefore not just be carrying university students.

All this will inevitably result in students arriving late after either missing the bus because it was full or because they have found no parking space for their car. Residents living close to university will soon start having parking problems too.

I ask two questions: In reducing the students' parking space, what increase in security did we achieve? And what has the KSU done to protest against the reduction of parking space for students?