The University and new MLP leader

Among the reasons some observers cite to account for the Labour Party losing the last election are the uneasy relations between the party and a number of University students and staff. There are 10,000 students, and if one adds close family members, this could easily grow to 40,000. These are not numbers that can be ignored.

The mentality where parents influenced their siblings on how to vote may slowly be reversing. Students now influence even their staunch party diehard parents to consider more important matters than the street lamp or the pot hole in their street when deciding who to vote for.

This past week, Dominic Fenech, a distinguished professor on campus, publicly expressed in The Times his thoughts on the selection of the Labour Party's new leader. Prof. Fenech certainly has the Labour Party at heart and also has his feet on the ground.

In the campus corridors it is sometimes said that in past years the University has treated staunch Labour supporters on campus very well, sometimes even to the extent of sacrificing declared Nationalists from being awarded a due promotion to make it clearly seen that the latter are not given preferential treatment when dealing with appointments or promotions.

However, this has hardly caused Labour Party members to change their unwarranted ironic and cynical references to the University. For socialism to survive, it is now important for the Labour Party to gather enough students in its arms. This can be done if the new leader is not only elected democratically but also has an optimistic view of the University and its three pillars - teaching, research and service. No one has insulted the University more than the Labour Party when in the past it said its diplomas were worth little more than wrapping paper for anchovy, and that research was no more than the measurement of how far lice could jump.

The University student representative organisation KSU cannot sweep under the carpet its duty to express an opinion on the selection of the Labour Party leader. It must investigate the leader's real commitment towards education. There is no doubt that all the contenders would accept that education is a priority. The question that needs an answer is to what extent.

Other questions relate to the importance they would attribute to research and innovation, and culture in all its aspects whether it concerns music, art, drama, museums, archaeology, traditions and knowledge.

The KSU and Labour-leaning organisations such as Pulse should support the bid of the contender who shows and declares that the Labour Party will build a knowledge-based society. The first candidate to declare that he is looking forward to be a Labour Prime Minister is Labour MEP Joseph Muscat. Dr Muscat has stated that he has mapped out a 15-year project for the party and the country, pledging to work to overhaul Labour in the next two years.

Lino Spiteri, writing in The Times last Monday, identified education as an area where considerable consensus is not only possible but strongly required. University students and academic staff have a duty to work to ensure as far as possible not only that the next Labour Party leader refrains from committing blunders as far as tertiary education is concerned but moreover that the newly elected leader's strategy gives top priority to tertiary education in all its components, not solely the teaching aspect.