Doctor where’s my spleen?

I really think that as a country we should revise this obsession of ours to send as many students as possible to university.

It is time to accept that we are diminishing the worth of a degree by churning them out like pastizzi- Kristina Chetcuti

There are, give or take, some 11,000 students at the University of Malta at the moment. Does this little bit of statistic impress me? Not really. Why? Well, let’s just say that more than halfof them are there reading… Facebook.

A lecturer friend of mine some time ago had told me that on campus you can see “groups of friends, sitting together, drinking coffee together, but chatting online to each other instead of face to face”.

Fair enough. New generation and all that. But it never occurred to me though, that Facebooking would take place during lectures. Until I attended one last week, that is.

Sitting at the back of the auditorium I was initially mightily impressed by the high-tech students: netbooks, laptops, iPads all sprawled open.

But as I pried over their shoulders, I realised that these students were not taking note of what the lecturer was saying. They were busy updating their social network statuses (ouch, the terrible spelling and grammar) and generally snooping on their peers’ photos taken over the weekend.

I was not surprised really – on Tuesday we had MPs in the House chatting on Facebook while crucial speeches were being made. Sheer dumbness, if you ask me.

It’s like having a surgeon stopping mid-operation to chat to his Facebook friends and then for good measure, paste a picture of a scalpel just in case we didn’t know what it looked like.

This is precisely what worries me. Students of today are going to be tomorrow’s MPs and I don’t want them to be fiddling on Facebook while discussing the nation’s policy making, thank you very much.

So there’s a record number of 4,000 students enrolling at University every year? Boo hoo to that.

Half of them are there because their parents want to be able to say in social circles that their child “is going to university, ta!”

Not all students are cut out for the rigorous and intellectual stimulation of academia, and at this rate, University seems to be turning into a school for mass herding.

As a result of this we have students reading Maltese who only read Gwida and Antenna; we have Communications students who are not even aware who the President of Malta is; BA English students who can’t name a Shakespearian play and who think Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code is the finest example of English literature.

I’m scared to ask about medical students. I’d rather not know that new graduate doctors don’t have a clue where my spleen is.

Yes, education today has as much to do with improving your mind as watching an Eileen Montesin TV series.

So it is not surprising that most of our students don’t even bleat or squeak on issues of great importance.

Where were the University students, say, in the anti-Gaddafi protests? Probably checking out their blank looks in the reflection of their laptops. Or, oh, stranded at a bus stop.

If they are barely interested in their studies how can they even think about national and global issues?

There is a solution for all this. Some time ago, University rector Juanito Camilleri had argued that the University should adopt a fees system for all courses but then provide scholarships to local and overseas students. I’m all for it.

It’s the sad reality of our nature that we do not appreciate the free things in life. If we have to shell out money then our motivation is much greater.

It’s a bit rich, you might say, this talk of tuition fees, when you had it all free. The thing is, I’d undo my four-year stint in a jiffy.

When I was at University I was pretty much an unmotivated blob on a bench. But when I had to pay for my post-grad tuition in the UK, I worked my backside off.

I am not being elitist here. I absolutely agree that we should pay for the brightest students from the poorest backgrounds to go to university. And for the record I am not at all suggesting we should go back to Mintoff’s atrocious points system. God forbid.

I simply would rather have fewer students but all of them thirsty for knowledge. It would put my mind at rest that at least the country would be nurturing people whose knowledge extends more than quoting ‘words of wisdom’ on Facebook.

It is time to accept that we are diminishing the worth of a degree by churning them out like pastizzi. And really, many people would have more success not going to university.

krischetcuti@gmail.com