Academics at the University are unable to pursue research at a higher level because of lack of funding, according to the president of their association.

Central Bank governor Michael Bonello last month proposed that stipends be means-tested to free up funds to go towards education. The suggestion opened a can of political worms, with the Finance Minister, the Opposition Leader and a handful of student organisations joining in a rare chorus of disapproval.

While avoiding the issue of whether, or how, stipends should remain, the president of the University of Malta Academic Staff Association (Umasa), Matthew Montebello said the situation was already looking “difficult” for him and his colleagues.

“We have signed a collective agreement which lasts until 2013 and we’re bracing ourselves for the one after that, as it won’t be easy,” Dr Montebello said, adding one of the important streams in the collective agreement was still not in action.

“At the moment, lecturers, senior lecturers and professors who want to pursue research at a higher level cannot do so because there are no funds for that,” he explained.

The struggle between providing universal access to tertiary education and having a quality University is one the institution is grappling with.

In his publication, 2020 Vision Or Optical Illusion, rector Juanito Camilleri stressed the importance for the University to strengthen its research programme to be at the level of other European universities. He complained that PhD graduates returning to the University were being stifled by an intense teaching routine just as soon as they were starting to become “international currency”.

In the publication penned towards the end of his tenure, he also called for direct funding for research.

“Given that research requires very expensive infrastructure and given that one cannot expect significant private finance for research in the light of Malta’s current industry profile, it is clear the government must invest heavily and directly in research and development – and this investment ought to be consolidated and focused and not spread thinly,” Prof. Camilleri wrote.

Prof. Camilleri also mourned the state of the library, expenditure on which he said was “nowhere near” what it should be and said, ideally, the budget had to double and then be doubled again.

In his report, the rector also spoke of the need for student fees. Since Maltese students were not charged for full-time courses, neither were EU students living in Malta, the University was not promoting its courses in the EU.

The quandary on where to spend funds earmarked for education is not one unique to Malta.

Roderick Chalmers, who had written the report on higher education back in 2004, said the problem was one faced across the world. “There’s a lot of demand on government finances and choices have to be made,” Mr Chalmers said, adding it was important to find the best way to “apportion the limited resources of the state”.

Mr Chalmers said six years after his report “the financial issue remains a burning one” and, while the political imperative of getting more and more people to participate in tertiary education was to be applauded, the issue was “how do you then provide funding for the institutions to handle this growing number of participants?”

“There has to be a real evaluation between how much is available for education. The fact is stipends do not get into education, so, whereas stipends are part of the education vote, it doesn’t go into education, it goes towards people to enable them to participate,” he said.

“The issue could be cured in different ways: redirect part of the stipends to the institutions, impose a form of tuition charge, a combination of the two or introduce a clawback.”

Mr Chalmers mentioned Australia and New Zealand as two countries which employed the clawback system effectively, where “tertiary education is free at the point of access, with student loans available to enable people to get through tertiary education but then there’s a clawback at a later stage, which would be reinvested in education”.

He also believed the stipends issue was being discussed in an inappropriate manner. “The stipends issue has become too politicised... The question of the re-evaluation of financing of tertiary education is a very serious long-term issue, such as pensions and healthcare... and it would be a real pity if people converted this long-term issue, which warrants mature debate, into political football, which is so easily done,” he concluded.