The University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with St George's, University of London, with a view to launch by late spring a joint four-year international graduate entry medical education programme in Malta commencing as early as January 2009, leading to a registerable medical qualification.
The agreement was signed during a recent visit to Malta by a delegation from St George's led by its acting principal Prof. Sean Hilton, which reciprocated a University delegation visit to St George's late last year.
Prof. Godfrey Laferla, dean of the University's Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, expressed the faculty's enthusiasm about such a joint venture, which he said would be a true partnership between two equals where the responsibilities and benefits would be shared, unlike the franchises other institutions have previously proposed.
He said both the University's own medical course as well as the programme to be offered in partnership with St George's would run in parallel rather than in direct competition. He said this would be a superb way of improving the currently high standards achieved and he augured that the partnership would open up opportunities to all faculty members as well as all other doctors working at Mater Dei Hospital.
University rector Prof. Juanito Camilleri said this was a further step in the University's strategy of partnering with prestigious international educational institutions and would help realise the vision of Malta as an international preferred provider of quality higher education, the 'Teacher of the Mediterranean'. He said that these partnerships enhance the University and the country as a whole.
The MoU regulates discussions between the two parties and it is hoped that the proposed graduate entry programme would only be the start of a long-term relationship between the University and St George's that would include postgraduate education and combined research projects with joint applications for international research grants.
St George's has 5,500 students, made up of 1,300 undergraduate medicine and bioscience students, 3,700 health professions undergraduates in its joint faculty, 300 taught postgraduates and 200 research students.
It offers a wide range of postgraduate programmes at certificate, diploma, Master's and doctoral level that could complement the University's own postgraduate programmes. A number of St George's postgraduate qualifications are offered in conjunction with Kingston University.
St George's has been running graduate and undergraduate entry medical education programmes together for over seven years. It is the only independently-governed medical school in England and was the first British medical school to offer a graduate entry programme. Its next intake will be 98 students. It gained an excellent score of 23 out of 24 in the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) inspection of medicine - the highest score of any medical school in London.
St George's is also a major international research centre and in peer-reviewed journals its research is rated to be of at least national excellence in the majority of its activities, particularly in cardiovascular and respiratory epidemiology. Work in pre-clinical studies is considered to be of international excellence. Research is also strong in basic medical sciences, particularly cell biology and molecular genetics. St George's research continues to be influential in the fields of medical epidemiology.
In Malta, the delegation from St George's also met various other officials including the Prime Minister, the Ministers of Education, Health, Care of the Elderly and Community Care, the Labour Party deputy leader and the Shadow Minister for Education, British High Commissioner Nick Archer and senior members of the National Commission for Higher Education.
They also visited Mater Dei Hospital and the Medical School, and met senior members of the medical profession on duty there.