Last week, a news item about the University rector’s discussion document (2020 Vision Or Optical Illusion?) made this newspaper’s most-commented list. The news concerned, of course, Juanito Camilleri’s proposal of a system of fees for all courses. Not a sound was heard from the entire political class. Perhaps it was the silence of awe at the online commentariat’s furious opinions about how the University should be run.
Prof. Camilleri’s mandate runs out next year. A new appointment may need to be considered. Given the politicians’ deference to public opinion on the future of higher education, some readers may want to measure themselves up for the post. I have designed a simple test whose five sections – maths, multiple choice, comprehension, essay and project – should help you decide just where you stand in relation to other candidates.
Maths: The UK government has just paved the way to enable British universities to raise tuition fees up to €10,600, treble what they are now, from September 2012. There are almost two million undergraduates in the UK. With fees that high, it is likely some of them will shop around for other English-speaking universities.
Some students may well hear of a former colony where tuition is free and a maintenance grant is paid – a package that any EU student qualifies for.
Question: If only one in 1,000 students decides to apply to the UoM, would that amount to 2,000 applicants? If only one in 10,000 applies, would the amount still be at least 10 per cent of the UoM’s estimated growth in student numbers up till 2015? Calculate the probability that the UoM would attract those numbers.
Multiple choice: Watching the televised student protests in the UK, what thought should be animating our public discussion?
There, but for the grace of this government’s sound, courageous, far-sighted economic policies...
This would never happen under our leader Joseph Muscat.
My God! In just two years they’ll be coming here. EU membership has jeopardised UoM places for Maltese students while obliging us to subsidise other nations’ students!
Is there a way, permitted by EU rules, to market the UoM aggressively to those students, raise the international UoM brand, and get each accepted student to pay a fee rather than cost Maltese taxpayers a stipend?
Comprehension: Go to section 3.1 of Prof. Camilleri’s document, which gives the context in which University fees could be introduced: “...Government establishes scholarships for EU nationals who are established residents (i.e. having lived in Malta for five of the previous 10 years)...
“Such scholarships will include both a maintenance grant as well as a tuition grant... the main principle... being access to higher education for all those who would otherwise not afford to do so.”
Question: Do you read this passage (and another in section 4.1) as saying that tuition fees would need to be forked out by Maltese households?
Or, rather, as suggesting an accounting change, which financially would leave all Maltese students exactly as they are now but permit the UoM to charge fees to non-residents without being in breach of EU law? (If you get this one right, you will distinguish yourself from the mass of other candidates.)
Essay: “The status quo on tuition fees and stipends is jeopardising UoM places for Maltese students. But enabling the UoM to market its programmes aggressively would improve the reputation of its degrees and thus not only safeguard student places but also improve graduate job prospects.” Discuss.
However, you may want to use this section to soar above the detail and display your strategic vision. While Malta argues about what would rehabilitate Valletta by 2018, tiny Israel has set itself the goal of having 90 per cent of its cars go electric by 2017. It has developed a revolutionary business model, established a partnership with the Renault-Nissan alliance and has a joint project with Denmark. The Knesset has a higher proportion than our Parliament of problems but, since its founding, Israel has had a very focused political sense of how research and innovation are bound up with its identity and long-term future.
Hence, the second essay question, lifted from the opening of Prof. Camilleri’s chapter 4: “The debate (on higher education) should first and foremost focus on the intellectual assets of the country, how best these can be strengthened and how best these can be leveraged to ensure this country is future-proof.” Discuss.
Project: Get the politicians to say something, beyond attitude and platitudes, in answer to the questions raised in this test. If you manage, you will have succeeded where, probably, no one has so far.
Given the money involved, in investments and economic outcomes, you would have got them to answer what is literally a billion dollar question. And distinguished yourself from the rest of the competition.
Note: Prof. Camilleri’s 2020 Vision Or Optical Illusion?’ may be accessed at www.um.edu.mt/newsoncampus/?a=111090.
ranierfsadni@europe.com