This week, two news items about European higher education hit the headlines. In Malta, it was the European Commission’s report that Malta is one of only three EU states that provide totally free University tuition plus a grant for all students.
We cannot assume steady, gradual trends in an unsteady, crisis-rocked
world- Ranier Fsadni
In England, it was the alarming – and unexpected – figure of 30,000 fewer accepted applicants for University places, a situation with several causes but largely blamed on the introduction of tuition fees of up to £9,000.
Between them, the two stories seem to tell an unambiguous tale of heroic Maltese commitment to further education, which safeguards our educational and economic future.
However, when the dots between the two stories are joined, the commitment seems like a much weaker safeguard. Self-congratulation should make way for anxiety.
The European Commission study will attract notice elsewhere in the EU. What are the chances that Malta may attract significantly more students from crisis-struck countries like England?
We don’t need to speculate wildly. Scotland, which is self-governing in matters of education, charges no University fees for Scottish students and, therefore, cannot charge students from EU member states, either. (For reasons we don’t need to enter into, Scotland does charge students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, although this provision is being challenged.) As a result, Scotland has some 16,000 EU students in higher education. They cost the taxpayer £75 million a year. Scotland is not even independent but it effectively subsidises the education budgets of sovereign states.
Given the increasing financial pressures, the last year has seen the Scottish Minister of Education wonder publicly if the system is sustainable. More than once, he has mooted a challenge to the obligation to underwrite EU students. In reply, the Commission warned Scotland that charging EU students could be illegal.
Although the Maltese debates about University funding focus on stipends, tuition forms the greater part of the budget. Moreover, while the right to a stipend is subject to certain restrictions, tuition has to be offered free to any EU student once Maltese students are not charged. Could Malta find itself in Scotland’s position and end up significantly importing other countries’ debts?
Malta is nowhere near attracting 16,000 EU students. But we don’t need those numbers to suffer a financial hit. There are two million undergraduates in the UK. If only one in 10,000 decides to apply to the University of Malta that amount would be some 10 per cent of estimated student growth numbers up till 2015. If one in 1,000 applies, that would come to 2,000 applicants. And that’s just the UK.
Costs don’t depend only on student numbers. Some courses, like medicine, are significantly more expensive than others. For that same reason, they may attract proportionately more students than other courses.
I don’t know whether applications for University of Malta places this year indicate greater interest from EU students. If they don’t, it won’t mean that there is no imminent risk. Just as the drop in applications in England was sudden, unexpected and significant, so can a rise in applications for University of Malta places.
We cannot assume steady, gradual trends in an unsteady, crisis-rocked world. Last Tuesday, The Guardian quoted an ‘exasperated University head’ as saying: ‘This new admissions environment is not stable, it is not linear, it is, in the real sense of chaos theory, a chaotic environment with all sorts of unintended consequences.’
Unintended consequences are being experienced in Scotland, too. The current funding law was enacted by a government led by the Scottish Nationalists. Its proud patriotic intent was to safeguard tertiary education for Scottish nationals. Recent reports, however, suggest the opposite.
The admissions system permits numbers to be capped for students who have only average grades. Because of the funding squeeze, universities are, where they can, opening more places for fee-paying students and restricting places for Scottish students. Places are being refused to Scottish students while applications are invited from foreign and English students.
In other words, a law enacted with a commitment to maxi-mise opportunities for higher education has ended up, in practice, by restricting it for less gifted students. The noble, unshakeable commitment to equality was no safeguard; indeed, some blame it for making the situation worse.
While that particular result could not happen at the University of Malta, which does not have grade-based capping, Malta is in a similar predicament: National commitment, however genuine, is no safeguard if demand is international. A spike in demand would divert funds from the development of quality education and seriously affect strategic planning.
A two-pronged solution has been proposed more than once, most recently by the University Rector: First, the introduction of tuition fees for everyone, which would permit EU students to be charged (and if fees are competitive, the University of Malta would be able to market its courses more aggressively and generate a new funding stream). Second, the introduction of scholarships, covering 100 per cent of the fees for all Malta-domiciled students who are accepted by the University of Malta.
But are we discussing the matter? The threat is not even being broached.
We demand that politicians treat us like adults. At the same time, we give every sign of believing that, if we close our eyes, the unseen world will cease to exist.
ranierfsadni@europe.com