In our competitive world we need to apply some lateral thinking and realise that our smallness can be a unique advantage. The Maltese have a gift for learning languages. Let us exploit this ability as much as possible. When confronting market competition we need to look at features of our talents that could provide us with that extra edge.
It is true that the University has to identify areas of excellence. Yet in this laudable process it is important that we do not miss out on basic essentials. The huge strides forward made in the teaching of ICT, engineering, the health professions and the chemical and biological sciences at University may have overshadowed the extensive tertiary education work we carried out in the area of languages.
Our focus on English is such that it is hardly considered as a foreign language. The excellence we have achieved in Italian makes this language so familiar to us that we Maltese sometimes tend to forget to count our blessings that we perform so well in both English and Italian.
We hope that this remains so. It is extremely important not to become complacent or sit on our laurels. We must keep in mind that excellence is achieved only through persistent hard work. The University therefore has a serious obligation to ensure that these departments of English and Italian retain the highest standards achieved to date and that they are provided with all support possible.
Excellence in these areas is achieved through hard work and should not be assumed. These departments have reached and sustained such a high level over a period of time that they are the envy of some foreign universities, including those whose native language is English or Italian.
Notwithstanding several past attempts, our academics and students have unfortunately not accepted Arabic to the same level as English and Italian. Several efforts have also been made to promote the teaching of French, Spanish and German at tertiary level. A few Maltese students have won scholarships to study at reputable Japanese universities and it was no small achievement that they managed to pick up the Japanese language in a short time.
The importance and relevance given to develop these areas has also been somewhat neglected recently and more investment is needed. Proficiency in languages will help Malta to further develop its tourist industry as well as attract more foreign students to study English in Malta. Language proficiency also helps attract industry to our shores.
For example, a number of companies in Malta have mother companies in Italy. The extensive proficiency of Italian in Malta must have positively influenced the decision as to where they developed a subsidiary factory.
The Faculty of Arts' language departments currently provide the indispensable and invaluable service of running specialised courses that train student teachers specialising in a particular language so that they may be able to teach that language in our schools. Yet it is also important that for students to study honours degrees not only in the Maltese and English languages but also in Italian, French, German, Spanish, Arabic and perhaps also Chinese and Japanese.
Students in other faculties, including medicine, engineering and science, should also be required to take credits in another language other than Maltese and English to be able to read and write in a third language. It would be quite unique for our University's students to be able read and write fluently three languages - a uniqueness that would put our graduates a step ahead of others.