The University should seek to recruit more international students who are willing to pay for admittance, newly-appointed Rector Alfred Vella said yesterday, as this would make the institution more financially sustainable.

Prof. Vella, who was installed as the University of Malta’s 81st rector yesterday, expressed his intention to put forward the idea of adopting a funding model similar to that by private providers, as would be the case with the American University of Malta. This was accredited as a university yesterday.

“The State would still be able to and, in my strong view, should still support through scholarships all those students who have the entry qualifications which UoM today requires: other students would be allowed to access our programmes but against a charge,” Prof. Vella told those at the installation ceremony.

This would require a change of mind-set for the university, he said, but it would also allow for competition for students from other European countries as well as those from the Middle East. “The income so generated could be added to that dedicated to funding the research effort. One cannot expect successful research to happen on the cheap: you require dedicated researchers, an up-to-date library and laboratory facilities and some – well more than some – luck.”

In his speech, Prof. Vella said the university should strive to be among the best in the geographical region and went on to say he was not concerned about the setting up of the American University of Malta.

“By the way, I am not worried by this development through which we are seeing universities and other higher education institutes being set up around us as these entities could, among many other things, provide additional employment prospects for our own postgrads and PhDs,” he said.

The new rector also announced he would be still be lecturing a few hours a week, which he believed could help him “remain in contact with the fast pace of change in the science [he] professes”.

Prof. Vella’s predecessor Juanito Camilleri, who also spoke at the ceremony while reminiscing on his 10-year run, said that for the University to achieve greater things, it would be crucial that the institution was not “held on a leash by mindless bureaucracy and rigid administrative practice”.

“Never in the history of our island nation have we needed a truly autonomous university as much as we need it today,” Prof. Camilleri said.

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