A five-year collective agreement for university and junior college lecturers, signed yesterday, places more focus on e-learning and research and lists them among the criteria for promotions.
“It is naïve to continue measuring a lecturer’s input in terms of lecturing hours. We have to incentivise them to go out there to carry out research and innovation and to transfer that to our economy,” said University of Malta rector Juanito Camilleri after signing the 2014-2018 collective agreement.
It is naïve to continue measuring a lecturer’s input in terms of lecturing hours
Representatives from the Malta Union of Teachers and the University of Malta Academic Staff Association (Umasa) also signed the agreement in the presence of Education Minister Evarist Bartolo and Finance Minister Edward Scicluna.
Prof. Camilleri said the agreement, signed after more than a year of negotiations, was built on the “revolutionary” 2009 agreement that had introduced more flexible working hours to allow the university to be open between 8am and 8pm.
While the new agreement did not include drastic changes, he said, it worked towards creating “a university of the third generation” built on three pillars: teaching and learning with more emphasis on e-learning; research and innovation with added incentives for academic staff to publish their work; and an outreach dimension aimed at creating tomorrow’s jobs.
Prof. Scicluna said the agreement included salary increases in line with productivity and inflation.
When asked for the figures he said they would eventually be published.
Umasa president Matthew Montebello said the increments would be of about 1.5 per cent in the first two years followed by 2.5 per cent in the next three years, in line with civil service rises. Both he and MUT president Kevin Bonello welcomed the signing of the agreement. Mr Bonello admitted he was disappointed with the way the Medical Association of Malta handled the situation when it demanded union recognition and threatened industrial action.
The MAM argued that doctors felt sidelined as they were treated like second-class academics. It had ordered a one-hour strike – scheduled for Tuesday between 8am and 9am – but it was suspended following the intervention of the Director of Employment and Industrial Relations.
Prof. Camilleri said that, on Tuesday, the university held clarification meetings with the doctors’ union and the issues were solved.
MAM general secretary Martin Balzan confirmed that a clarification letter had been drawn up by the rector that addressed two major concerns.
In the letter, the MAM was assured that career progression would be at par with other academics and that qualifications that could lead to promotions would be upgraded in line with EU requirements.
As for union recognition, Dr Balzan said, the MAM did not have an immediate need for such recognition and would discuss whether to seek it in future.