International master's programmes postponed

Two international master's programmes (IMPs) that the University of Malta was planning to offer in collaboration with two American universities from the Old University Building in Valletta have had to be postponed to the 2009 academic year due to inadequate response from overseas students.

The programmes - an M.Sc. in Sustainable Environmental Resources Management in partnership with James Madison University in Virginia, and a collaborative master's degree in Marketing and Integrated marketing Communications, in partnership with San Diego University in California, were mainly aimed at attracting international students from North Africa, eastern Europe and beyond.

The tuition fee for either programme was €12,500 and to break even they needed to attract between 15 and 20 fee-paying students. However, the University's delegate for the IMPs Prof. Albert Caruana admitted that "most of the applicants we have had were local," mainly because "we could only start doing some promotion from around April when unfortunately most overseas students would have long decided where they were going to pursue their studies".

Nevertheless, Prof. Caruana said the University was committed to the programmes and was in the process of recruiting a new international marketing coordinator to improve the number of overseas applicants. "We are keen to have a good mix of local and overseas students as we believe part of the learning experience comes with interaction with fellow students," he added.

The postponement will also give the University time to better prepare the Old University Building to host the programmes. Prof. Caruana commented that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had "finally" vacated the second floor of the building around May and "the postponement will give us time to refurbish the vacated floor".

Asked about the future plans for the IMPs, Prof. Caruana said the intention was to launch two further programmes in the 2010 academic year - one on conflict resolution with George Mason University of Fairfax, Virginia, USA, and another University on criminal justice with Western Michigan University, USA.