Some 18,000 students will no longer need to use their smart card to buy academic resources, following the decision to abolish a scheme originally intended to ensure taxpayers’ money was not being misused.

From September, students at post secondary and tertiary level who benefit from this scheme will start receiving the allowance directly into their bank account, with no restrictions on how to make use of it.

About €7.5 million is allocated each year for this grant, which is over and above the stipend.

The announcement was made yesterday by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo, who justified the decision as a means to save some €175,000 in annual expenses to run the smart card scheme. He cited an Auditor General report of 2010 which had criticised it for being costly, bureaucratic and rather ineffective.

Mr Bartolo acknowledged that the abolition of smart cards would place more responsibility on the way students would make best use of this allowance.

He pledged that students dropping out in the course of an academic year or those having a poor attendance record, would have their grant and stipend terminated, and be obliged to refund any pro-rata payments received in advance.

Cards had been used to hire cars and buy medicine

On the other hand, he argued that the stipend and smart card systems, were far from foolproof.

“In some cases, it transpired that smart cards had been used to hire cars and buy medicines,” the minister said. The new system will facilitate online purchases due to the fact that with the smart card such process was riddled with red tape, he added.

Mr Bartolo remarked how the government was still chasing some €500,000 supposed to be refunded from students who had dropped out of their courses.

Through the use of e-ID for online registration, the government would be in a better position to recoup this money owing to the obligations of the registration, the minister said.

Asked to comment on the industrial dispute involving the academic staff at University and the Junior College, he declined to say how much the new collective agreement would be costing the government.

However, he said that over a five-year period, the increase in allowances and salaries would exceed €8 million.

On Friday, a directive to withhold all results of non-final year students was lifted following a breakthrough in negotiations which had been dragging on for weeks.

The agreement is set to be presented for the final approval of the academic staff in the coming days, which would then pave the way for the signing between the government and the unions.