Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was hiding behind the University Rector's proposal to turn the stipends system into loans, the Labour Youth Forum said.

The recent declaration by the Education Ministry that it would experiment and be creative with the stipends system was "orchestrated to pave the way for the removal of the stipends", the forum claimed.

Rector Juanito Camilleri had said students should choose whether to get stipends and pay them back gradually once they graduated or opt out of the system and receive future tax breaks instead.

The proposal was backed by the Governor of the Central Bank but the forum believed this was just a rehash of the 1997 proposal that was turned down by students.

The forum said it would never accept a move by the government to burden students with loans after the promises it made in recent months to retain them. It was unacceptable for the government to bring up such a discussion.

The forum claimed that, since the government reduced the monthly grant to students some years ago, many were already facing financial difficulties as it was, let alone if stipends were to be removed as a whole.