Trumpet blast

Recently you attended a half-day seminar in which the National Commission for Higher Education (NCHE) presented comprehensive analysis and recommendations and you intervened at the end. What were your reactions?

The main hero that emerged on the occasion was the Giovanni Curmi Higher Secondary School, as it is called. The reason is that it turned out to be the institution that is facing most directly and practically the gravest problem Malta has in the post-secondary sector of our educational system.

The problem is that, in spite of the considerable advances made in the past 20 years, the proportion of students at this level in relation to their age cohort is still well-below the European average. Unless this situation is considerably improved, the fulfilment of the Gonzi objective of Malta becoming a centre of excellence in higher education, at least for the Mediterranean region, is impossible.

The Giovanni Curmi HSS is a rare instance where the PN electoral promise that state schools would each have a specific identity became a reality. It provided hospitality for students who did not obtain the ordinary level certifications required for admission to the normal sixth forms but were enabled over the two-year spell or possibly more at the school to acquire the qualifications for entry to University or other tertiary institutions. In this way, the school succeeded in recouping a significant number of more or less young men and women to fill the gap between the levels of participation in higher education between Malta and Europe.

However, the pedagogical methods developed at the school proved attractive enough for students qualified for sixth form studies to prefer Giovanni Curmi to other sixth forms. This choice may have been partly prompted because of the physical context about which university rector Juanito Camilleri, spoke with the same fear and trembling in the eyes of God that I feel when the temptations to alcoholism so visible in the vicinity of Junior College are seen.

I must confess that I have also seen suspicious-looking characters lurking near Giovanni Curmi, but it is much more possible to stay within its precincts than in the over-crowded Msida building. But I can vouch that certainly in the area I know most about - philosophy - the teaching is equally excellent, and results suggest that it is likewise in the sciences and other subjects.

Since you are agreeing that increasing the number of students at tertiary level is our most serious challenge, presumably you are not in favour of removing or reducing the stipend system?

That was actually the subject that I tackled in my intervention precisely because it was not really dealt with in the NCHE report. To the government probably the most striking element in the report was the calculation that something like €2 billion would be required to finance higher education over the years prospected by NCHE.

But the report did not go into the issues that had been so excellently discussed in the Chalmers report of a few years ago, such as the various systems of formula funding. A main proposal canvassed in that report was not abolishing or diminishing the stipend system, but restructuring it in a more transparent way that would also result in more income for the University.

The idea was that the University should charge full fees calculated on the basis of accurate accounting, while grants covering both fees and stipend should be assigned to long-term residents in our islands. This system would both make it clear to beneficiaries how much and how variously according to their field of study they were costing and also enable the University to significantly increase its income in fees in conformity with both European Union conditions and local government policy.

I cannot understand why this proposal which has been put forward already, so many years ago, has not been implemented. It clearly should not have any adverse political effect as alternative proposals such as that to change the system from stipend to loans would have. Admittedly, it requires an efficient management organisation but it is certainly not beyond the proven abilities of such experts in the field as the chairman and chief executive of NCHE, Philip von Brockdorff and Jacques Sciberras.

What other measures were proposed to bring about the essential expansion of the tertiary sector in the sustainable development perspective on the basis of which the present government was elected?

There was a consensus of regret about the inadequate implementation of the excellent proposals for reform of the SEC and MATSEC examinations made a few years ago equal to that felt about the non-implementation of the recommendations of the Chalmers report.

The rector pointed out, for instance, that the syllabi for intermediate level are still often a heavier burden than the third of advanced level that they are supposed to be. However, it is completely against the original intention that intermediate level study should consist of part of the same syllabus as advanced level. A completely different approach is needed depending upon whether a subject is being studied for later specialisation in it or whether a science subject is being studied by somebody intending to major in arts or an arts subject being studied by somebody intending to major in science. In this second case, the objective is to avoid the phenomenon Snow's "two cultures", with University students illiterate in one of them.

Several other key issues were raised at the very well prepared NCHE seminar. Some of them seemed to be preparing the ground for the much expected revision of the Education Act with regard to tertiary education, especially due to the new flora and fauna both of local and foreign origin that have flourished in the area. It seems now that a related document will soon be forthcoming from the Ministry of Education. That will undoubtedly call for a revisiting of this vital area not only for the future of our country but also immediately.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott was talking to Miriam Vincenti.