For the first time in history, the University is facing competition to attract students. We are witnessing a race to attract the best students, although the University is still on the front line in terms of both the breadth and width of its offers.

Several Maltese recently obtained Master's degrees from several foreign universities. The Sunday Times (September 16) announced that a number of Maltese recently obtained degrees from the University of Leicester's School of Management, the university's local resource centre being the Institute of Education (EIE).

Another article reported that of the 28 students graduating this year from St Martin's Institute of Information Technology, Hamrun, 14 obtained First Class Honours.

A total of 63 students have graduated from St Martin's over the past five years and today the institute has 272 students enrolled on a full-time or evening basis, reading for University of London diploma and degree programmes in business, economics, computer science, information systems and management.

The Sunday Times (September 30) announced that eight Maltese executives recently obtained an MBA from Henley Management College, bringing the number of Maltese executives with the Henley MBA to around 250.

Recently, the Minister of Education, Dr Louis Galea, and the Minister of Health, Dr Louis Deguara, announced the setting up in Malta of a private medical school by no less an entity than the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI), who promise to bring to Malta hundreds of graduates to follow their courses in Medicine. They also made a commitment to collaborate with the University of Malta.

These are all positive incentives to promote education in Malta as an area of excellence in Europe and the Mediterranean by 2015, and thereby achieving one of the government's targets. This is certainly good for the country.

However, in the light of these recent developments, is the University of Malta being fairly treated or is it moving, albeit slowly, to become a Cinderella of Malta's education system?

We are already witnessing some of these graduates from foreign universities grabbing the top posts on offer. The University of Malta rector, Professor Juanito Camilleri was reported by The Sunday Times (June10) as stating that tough decisions need to be taken if the country's high expectations are to be met.

The rector has not only successfully steered through the University Senate approval to set up a new Faculty of ICT, but he has now also taken the bold step of actually starting in earnest the faculty itself with a very promising number of students and academic staff.

This is no small achievement. The Faculty of ICT will cost an estimated €15 million to build and equip. This year's budget for the University will reflect this need after the government was satisfied with the rector's business plan.

The rector and the University do appreciate that millions have already been invested in the University over the years and continue to be invested. Nevertheless, as the rector stated, the country's aspirations and the University's requirements point to the need "of putting our heads together to see how more money can be channelled to the University".

At the beginning of this school year, Harvard used its endowment of $28 billion to make a move to attract the best students. Similarly, the government could start giving endowments to the University to enable it to invest in significant research programmes.

How about giving the University a large area of land such as the White Rocks, and the area from St Andrews to Qawra, to be developed as a state-of-the-art architecturally sound enterprise, perhaps together with the private sector?

History has shown that endowments have helped many universities to become great. Such an investment would be another feather in the government's cap.

Then there is the need to attract high standard foreign paying students. The problem the University faces is that it is not allowed to charge decent fees, and this hinders it from competing with private institutions. The University must be given due financing if the politicians want to sustain at all costs the no fee policy.

University academic staff must also be compensated for their contribution, with a decent salary and adequate facilities to work. UMASA and MUT, the trade unions representing the academic staff, have made their suggestions to meet this urgent need. Is there the need for the University's academic staff to be pushed to take industrial action - the only route being left open for the academic staff - to be awarded what has been their due for the last five years?

In order to retain its excellent, experienced staff and to attract fresh, young, enthusiastic, valuable lecturers and professors, one needs to offer them a decent salary and optimal conditions of work.

The rector and the University staff need all the support possible to enable them to succeed in their unique and indispensable contribution to the country's efforts to achieve excellence in education by 2015, and preferably before, as envisaged in the government's programme.

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