Vibrant little crew that Theology Students’ Association. Every year around Christmas they turn University into a sort of primary-school bazaar complete with cakes, lemonade, and carols. (‘Have your picture taken with Father Christmas’ – beats lectures any time.)

They also somehow manage, by means fair or fairer, to squat all over a The Sunday Times education page most weeks. More often than not, it ends up looking like a ‘what’s on at the parish’ page.

So, as one might guess, they do tend chronically to get on my nerves. But then so does hay fever and one learns to live with it. The same cannot be said of a more acute malady, as follows.

The Registrar occupies one of the highest offices at University, typically kept amply occupied with student records, requests, and a million other serious matters that keep the institution in bureaucratic shape.

This office has no time to waste, truth be told. Which is why my eyebrows went through the roof when I got an e-mail the other day ‘sent by the Registrar’s Office on behalf of the Theology Students’ Association’.

As for the contents, wait for it. It seems the parish cake squad will be holding a series of lectures on ‘The importance of the family in contemporary society’. The idea is “to help students realise the importance of adhering to lifestyles and values that will help the Maltese family grow in unity and love”.

For the sake of my coffee breaks with colleagues, I won’t comment too much on the schedule of lectures and lecturers.

I will, however, say that the second instalment will deal with ‘Christ and the Christian family in light of the Pastoral Note on the family by the Maltese bishops’. Lecture six will be given by Eddie Fenech Adami. The last lecture is still rather hazy.

I think the whole bash has three outstanding qualities. First, it’s a waste of time. Fact is that nine times out of 10 (I’ve just won the Euro Millions lottery), talk of stronger families, of the family as the foundations of a healthy economy and the basic building block of society, and such and such, is just a bunch of hot air and vacant babble. Suffice it to say that this week’s highest-profile wisdom on the topic (‘family values in schools’) was brought to us by… erm… Berlusconi.

Second, it’s misleading. That’s because of a certain referendum about a certain issue which none of the lecturers will as much as whisper a word about. The cake brigade will vouch the lectures will be about the family, not divorce.

Quite true, and they should also be fun for those who wish to see a remake of the Fawlty Towers ‘don’t mention the war’ episode. I’m saying that this is nothing but a ploy to blitz students with anti-divorce rhetoric, a few weeks before the referendum.

There’s a trivial, irrelevant, and insignificant detail by the way. In the official programme published on the University homepage, the last lecture will be given by Angela Abela. According to the Registrar’s update, however, the speaker will be Andre Camilleri, a hugely respectable gent who is in no way connected to the divorce referendum.

The third thing about these lectures is, they’re unacceptable. In fact, the really outrageous bit is that, according to the Registrar’s Office, “all students attending this series of lectures may join the Degree Plus Programme”.

For the benefit of non-parishioners, Degree Plus is a BoV-sponsored University programme by which students may earn brownie points for taking part in extra-curricular activities in the fields of music, the visual arts, entrepreneurship, and so on.

It’s a formal part of the University portfolio for the sake of which we sacrifice four hours of timetable time a week.

I have no problem with the Theology Students’ Association holding anti-divorce powwows on campus. They have every right to do so, as a recognised student organisation (and in any case University should offer space for politicking). Nor do I have anything against Degree Plus. It’s actually a rather agreeable idea which enjoys the support of most academics, myself included.

The bit I’m calling unacceptable is the coupling of the two, announced to the world by the Registrar’s Office no less (which in no way implicates the Registrar herself, by the way).

I trust I’m managing to get across the seriousness of this. It represents the institutionalisation, by the University authorities via Degree Plus, of a systematic conditioning – and that’s a mild way of putting it – of students.

I honestly hope that the many students who make our work at University worthwhile will actively resist this latest attempt to turn them into a glorified Tal-Mużew outing.

I once wrote somewhere that they deserve much better than a debate on condom machines. The one thing they certainly can do without is pathetic and shameless campaigning.

mafalzon@hotmail.com