Defining what better means

We refer to Owen Bonnici’s Malta Needs A Better University (May 4).

Malcolm Grant, president of University College of London, has described global rankings as annual light entertainment. In the United States, the infamous 2007 movement has boycotted the US News and World Report ranking survey. Across Canada, a number of universities refused to participate in the Maclean’s University Rankings survey. Contrastingly, for Dr Bonnici, opposition spokesman for higher education, the University, research and culture, benchmarking should be used as a basis of success for the Maltese educational system.

Policymakers across Europe, and beyond, however, have moved past this debate, which was at its peak in the early 1990s and are instead now talking about different manners of how to access the quality of the education being offered in higher education institutions.

As recent discussions on the European Commission’s proposal for a new objective ranking system have shown, the versatility in parameters in relation to rankings has lead to controversy and raised questions on whether rankings are looking into a University’s image rather than actual performance. While it is true that, as Dr Bonnici said, prospective students rely on a University’s rank when applying for a University programme, as the International Expert Groups on Rankings have highlighted, higher ranking does not equate to higher quality of education, which is what is truly in the students’ best interest.

Furthermore, Dr Bonnici makes reference to the fact that an increase in non-EU students will generate revenue for the University of Malta because they pay tuition fees. It is worrying that our politicians see this method of alternative financing as being the way forward for our University to become “excellent”. The discussion should rather be on how to find other sources of funding that complement the newly, and finally, set-up Trust Fund.

The main downside towards relying on rankings is the inconsistent methodology adopted by the existing ranking systems, including those quoted by Dr Bonnici. Comparing the ranking of The London School of Economics and institutions such as the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology indicates clearly a shortcoming in the methodology of rankings in that the kind of specialisation the higher education institutions have will also determine the position in the league tables with social science specialism doing less well than specialisation in science and technology.

Rankings based on citations further favour the bio-sciences, making the arts, humanities and social sciences very vulnerable. Equally vulnerable are professional disciplines, such as engineering, business and education, which do not have a strong tradition of peer-reviewed publications. Clearly, with the role of the University of Malta within the educational landscape as the main University in Malta, the watering down of the University’s operation to increase its rankability would be irresponsible and short-sighted.

As local stakeholders, namely the University Students’ Council and Juanito Camilleri, the University of Malta rector himself, have highlighted on numerous occasions it is true that Malta needs to invest more in its human resources, particularly through investment in education to foster a strong and sustainable economy. What is to be questioned is how to measure the success of an educational system.

The focus should be on the quality of our education through the process of quality assurance, which is an ongoing process (as opposed to the snapshot presented by rankings) that ensures the delivery of agreed standards. Quality assurance addresses all levels: the overall course, programme, the institution and separate faculties. It assesses the quality of the books in the University library, the research carried out in the laboratories, the relationship between the academic and student body, the value and final outcome of a degree programme among other factors.

To date, the University of Malta carries only internal quality assurance through a system of anonymous questionnaires that students fill in. More work needs to be done in this area. If we want to truly assess the quality of our University and what are its shortcomings, the University of Malta should embark on international evaluation through programmes such as the International Evaluation Programme. Since 1994, 250 evaluations have been conducted in 44 countries in Europe and worldwide. No such exercise has ever been carried out at a local level. The question that must be raised is whether the University’s lack of willingness of embarking on such an exercise is a case of being blissfully in denial or whether the administration feels much more work needs to be done before it subjects itself to such an exercise. An abysmal performance in such a programme would be a serious blow to the University of Malta’s image at a European and international level as the evaluation report is published online and accessed by all the stakeholders of higher education.

There is, in principle, a national consensus that the University of Malta has a major responsibility in ensuring excellence in the education of students, research, development and dissemination of knowledge and activities contributing to Malta’s cultural, scientific, and civic life. If we really want, what Dr Bonnici referred to as “a golden opportunity to identify our strengths and weaknesses”, the way forward is through a serious reality-check of the current quality of education being offered at our higher education institutions and not through buying an expensive dress to win a beauty pageant.

The authors, who sit on the European Students Union, are former student representatives in the University of Malta senate and are responsible for education affairs at the University Students’ Council.