The salary of the University Ombudsman should be paid out of the Consolidated Fund and not by the Education Ministry, Ombudsman Joseph Said Pullicino said.

Although the University Ombudsman's areas of responsibility did not directly form part of the ministry it was still important to ensure the autonomy and independence of this role, he said.

Chief Justice Emeritus Said Pullicino was speaking at the appointment of Charles Farrugia, who succeeds Victor Griffiths who retired last month at the end of a10-year tenure.

The Ombudsman delegated Prof. Farrugia the duty of investigating issues in other tertiary education institutions, such as the Malta College for Arts Science and Technology and the Institute of Tourism Studies.

This addition in duties should be cemented through legal amendments, the Ombudsman proposed.

Congratulating Prof. Farrugia on his appointment, he said one of the perennial problems was the accessibility of the University Ombudsman.

It was unacceptable that in an institution attended by some 10,000 students, only 20 complaints a year were lodged.

As a result, the office of the Ombudsman was not yielding the desired results.

He encouraged Prof. Farrugia to take the necessary measures to reach out to students in the various institutions in order to address this issue.

Prof. Farrugia urged students to be more proactive in their approach to lodging complaints and voicing their suggestions.

As the Ombudsman's office was a reactive one that could only follow up on complaints, it was up to the students to take the first step in seeking redress or lodging a complaint, he added.

He also urged students to exhaust all options for redress before approaching him with a complaint because the University Ombudsman should be the last recourse.

Prof. Farrugia's first move will be to meet the principals of the institutions falling under his responsibility to agree on a modus operandi and to urge the various administrations to pass on the message that students should be more proactive.