The signing of a new collective agreement for the academic staff of the University of Malta is an essential and indispensable step forward to create a better University. But it is not enough. The deal reached on the new collective agreement must not be used to make important issues on the future of our University disappear from the national agenda.

We must invest more in the University to enable it to reach high international standards and cooperate and compete successfully with top universities in Europe, the Mediterranean and the rest of the world.

Our University has great difficulties to make ends meet and definitely does not have enough resources to enhance its research capability by networking with other universities, to attract more overseas students and to provide new courses in the evening for adults who want to go to University.

With a new collective agreement for the academic staff these tasks will now be more achievable but more needs to be done to enable the University to carry out its vital role.

The government needs to take steps to change the way the University is funded. How can the University plan its future and embark on long-term projects if it gets its funds from the government on a-year-to-year basis? We need to move beyond the annual budget and provide the University with funds that are negotiated with the government for at least four years at a time.

The government must also change the Education Act to make it possible for the University to tap private sources of funding. Also, the Ministry of Finance must undertake to pass on to the University without delay all the funds that are voted in Parliament for the University.

It is unacceptable that the University wastes precious time chasing the government for funds approved by Parliament two/three years before.

Away from the scrutiny of Parliament and the media, the government has not been passing on to the University all the funds approved in Parliament during the budget debate.

The University cannot be treated so shabbily when all the political rhetoric is that the government is investing a huge amount of money in the University.

The Education Act also needs changing to modernise the way the University is run to make it more efficient in responding quickly to the fast-changing environment of today's world.

Apart from increasing funding and improving the running of the University, we must take all the necessary steps to update and upgrade the courses at the University and ensure that they are relevant for today's world and are delivered in ways that make sense in the first decade of the 21st century.

Though more young people are going to the University we still need to increase their number, so we must ensure that university education is accessible and affordable to every person in Malta and Gozo.

We must improve dramatically the quality of primary and secondary education to enable more young people to acquire the necessary qualifications, competencies and skills to study at the University as at the moment fewer than half of our students complete their primary and secondary education and succeed in achieving the necessary qualifications to take up university study.

Mr Bartolo is a Labour MP and the party's main spokesman on education.

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