The University's message to the PN

Many may have found it strange that University staff and students, who traditionally side with the Nationalist Party, should have followed the national trend and showed the party less support in the European Parliament elections.

This was all the more odd considering that government had repeatedly assured students that stipends will stay as they are, and the academic staff unions had reached an agreement with the government on new working conditions.

The University stood to gain from Malta's EU membership perhaps more than any other sector. It was, therefore, unexpected to see people at University supporting candidates who are known to be eurosceptic. Is this a case of the University being ungrateful to a benevolent government?

Not all students are fully convinced that stipends will be retained. Labour sympathisers at the University ensured that the messages send by opposition leader Joseph Muscat reached the students more effectively, albeit in a subtle way, than those sent by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.

Some students expect that stipends should not only be retained but increased and the Labour Party gave the impression that this is possible and that Labour MEPs could obtain more money from the EU for this purpose.

Just to complicate matters, not all students agree with the present stipends system where one cut fits all.

On their part academic staff are very unhappy about certain conditions of work in the collective agreement, not least the salary structures. The staff feel upset not only because the meagre salary increases were not backdated to five years ago when the previous agreement expired but also because they will only fully come into effect in five years' time.

Since Malta became an EU member five years ago the University academic staff expected their salaries to approach those of other EU universities. They feel cheated out of 10 years' increase in salary.

While the recently introduced system of scholarships for postgraduate courses was a step in the right direction it also created feelings of unhappiness. It discriminated against those selecting the University for their studies, and also against certain categories of students. For example, those wishing to follow a part-time Ph.D. at the University are not even allowed to apply for such a scholarship, however laudable their chosen subject may be.

Also, the extraordinary length of time it takes for the University bureaucracy to approve Ph.D. candidates, after passing through a maze of newly set-up academic and ethical committees, has added to the frustration of students who blame the government's lack of support to the University for this problem.

Both students and academic staff are disappointed at the state of lecture rooms and laboratories. They expect the government to invest much more in the University considering how often it says that it considers education as priority number one. Lecture rooms are light years away from what they should be. IT facilities are far from satisfactory, with some areas even lacking a simple computer system.

Laboratory officers are as scarce as snow in Malta. State-of-the-art equipment is scarce in the laboratories. Some are even of questionable safety due to lack of essential features found in all modern laboratories, such as simple extractors.

There was a time not many years ago when a number of Cabinet members were also University professors. These included Guido de Marco, Ċensu Tabone, Louis Galea, John Rizzo Naudi and Josef Bonnici. Today, University professors feel their opinion is hardly ever sought by the government even in their areas of expertise and on matters of national importance such as the Mepa reform and on the prices of medicines. The Cabinet should not remain obstinate in failing to consult and involve University professors and students, pretending that it knows it all.

By contrast, the Labour Party is consulting academics in an effort to base its policies based on expert advice. This is a feather in the PL's hat. The Labour Party's strategy of precisely sharing votes among its candidates outwitted the Nationalist Party which mainly boosted its prized horse but in so doing lost it the sixth MEP seat. While some say this was pure lack, others attribute the strategy to University academics who supported Labour after being disillusioned at being given the backstage by the Nationalist Party.

Some may view this criticism of the government as pettiness compared with the excellent improvements the University has achieved in recent years, which must surely outweigh the shortcomings. However, the lack of attention both in investing enough in the University's development and in using all the talents it has available seems to be a new attitude of the government, and especially of its civil servants. This negative attitude can only lead to a more trouble for the Nationalist Party.