Students at both the University and the Junior College are often turning up to lectures only to find out they have been cancelled

According to students from various faculties who spoke to the Times of Malta on the condition of anonymity, the new scholastic year has seen a notable increase in the number of lectures being cancelled.

However, a university spokesperson said there was no abnormal spike in lecture cancellations in October and that students’ claims about cancellations being a common occurrence “does not subsist”.

“In any case, rather than cancellation lectures are normally rescheduled,” the spokesperson said.

However, university students, including those in the nursing and teaching faculties, said that there had been instances where almost half of a week’s lectures were cancelled.

The worst part of this is they are cancelled at relatively short notice most of the time

While in some cases they were informed beforehand, there had also been several occasions when the students turned up only to learn that there would be no lesson that day.

The students who spoke to this newspaper said that, apart from this being a waste of time, as they could have used the extra hours to work on assignments, they were also concerned that the lecturers would not be able to cover the entire syllabus.

Students’ organisation SDM president, Neil Smart Constantino said that issues had already been flagged by students, who were often not being informed of the cancelled lectures. “The worst part of all this is the fact that they are cancelled at relatively short notice most of the time, particularly at the Junior College.

“Ever since we started this scholastic year, which has been exactly a month now, more or less a lecture a week has been cancelled for me or people I know,” Mr Smart Constantino said.

Students said they were given no explanation as to why so many lecturers were being cancelled.

Questions to another students’ organisation, PULSE, remained unanswered.