Universities today must meet international standards in research and teaching and if the institution is graded low quality it would be disastrous in the long term, the dean of the Faculty of Arts, Dominic Fenech, has warned.

He argued that investment in research should be given more importance than stipends and supported the comments of his colleague John Betts, dean of Engineering, who has urged a reform of the stipend system.

Prof. Fenech likened Dr Betts to the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, who highlighted the obvious when he pointed out that the king was parading naked, when no other subject would speak out.

He said that if it was a case of prioritising between spending the available cash on stipends for all students or upgrading university services and activity, then the latter should be “the higher priority”, for the benefit of the students and the country.

His faculty does not share the same constraints as other technology-driven faculties.

“But that is not to say that we are satisfied with the facilities and the infrastructure we have. As for pursuing more ambitious research projects, especially where travel abroad is concerned, the money available is too nominal to matter.”

Like Dr Betts, Prof. Fenech does not think that a lack of stipends would drastically affect the student intake, “especially if stipends were retained for those who are means-tested to qualify”.

As for the fear that fewer students would be attracted to the humanities because the degrees are perhaps less job-oriented, he said: “In the humanities, the degree is not bound to a profession, but then the graduate hopes to cash in on the flexibility it affords in a job market that is continuously evolving. So in that sense it is job or career oriented.”

Ernest Cachia, dean of Information Communication Technology, said the matter “is not black or white” or “stipends or no stipends”, although he acknowledged the importance of research to maintain the quality.

However, he feels that if Malta is to be competitive in the arena of graduates, the Government should seriously consider giving aid to encourage students to pursue specialised studies.

“For this reason, I feel it imperative that stipends be given to students who choose to study at postgraduate level,” said Dr Cachia, adding that this would distinguish us “from the ‘Indias’ and ‘Chinas’ of this modern world”.

While many forms and models of financial help to students could be explored, in his opinion numbers would go down without the stipends: “While a free university is already a great incentive, getting no financial help at undergraduate level would naturally deter many from considering pursuing studies at the quality levels expected at university level.”

On the other hand, the principal of St Martin’s Institute of IT, Charles Theuma, said that he completely agreed with the stipend system.

“Not all students are driving around in a Mercedes,” he said stamping down on the image that students are becoming “mini-millionaires on the back of the taxpayer”.

He believes a means-test system would be very complicated: “We’d need to employ an army of people to ensure that it’s a fair system – and in the long run that would cost more than the stipends itself.”

In his view, the system needs to be tweaked so that it is not the University that hands out the stipends but the Department of Social Services.

With this loophole, the University could then start charging fees to EU students.

“That’s a market of half a billion people that we cannot tap into at the moment,” he said, adding that such fees would boost the University’s research capital.

In the meantime, the University Students’ Council (KSU) insisted that stipends are a long-term investment spurring a “knowledge-based culture”; they ought to be retained “at all costs”.

It applauded the political parties on their pledge to “strengthen” the stipends upon election.

The funding allocated to University for the development of research infrastructure should be given equal and proportionate importance to the funding allocated for stipends, said KSU.

It urged the university to publicly declare its position with regard to stipends.