Mcast has been in the public eye for quite some time and generally for the wrong reasons. Lecturers at Mcast are facing everyday problems of mismanagement, are demoralised and are no longer impressed by triumphant announcements of great things to come.

For researchers at Mcast, the principal’s comments in a recent TV interview seem to be coming from someone living in a tall ivory tower, cut off from the everyday dreary reality that lecturers, researchers and students have to face.

The chequered history of Mcast in the past five years is marked by such pretentious announcements of great leaps forward, followed by reticence on what was actually achieved.

The Mcast management never admits and never learns from its failures. Mcast does not need cheap marketing ploys to impress the weary lecturing staff and public, but a solid management that serves the lecturing staff and students, who need to be included in the decision-making rather than be condescendingly informed about decisions after they become official in the ivory tower.

Three years ago, Mcast declared itself a University College. Many had hoped that Mcast would make a quantum leap forward in quality and eventually join in status the University of Malta.

Sadly, University College was left in the hands of an Mcast manager and the entire university project became mired in inertia and inaptitude.

Today, Mcast University College is in limbo. The manager of the University College never gave a public account of this failure and was conveniently promoted to the post of deputy principal.

Can Mcast give its lecturers, students and the public an account of why University College failed? Can it give an account on how and where public funds were spent to set up this failed project?

The most disturbing aspect of the Mcast University College is that it never operated with a licence from the education regulator, the National Commission for Further and Higher Education. 

This serious breach in regulations was allowed to persist for so many years and proves that we have a dormant Minister for Education.

The Mcast management never admits failure and never learns from its failures. Mcast does not need cheap marketing ploys

Mcast management has been shooting itself in the foot for many years. Its unwritten policy of forcing new lecturers holding a PhD to teach at level 3, that is at secondary school level, rather than at the much-needed undergraduate level proves the poor use of human resources.

This has resulted in the haemorrhaging of highly qualified lecturers from Mcast who became frustrated with the humiliation of not having their potential fulfilled.

Meanwhile, many lecturers teaching at degree level do not hold a postgraduate qualification, in breach of NCFHE regulations.

Consultation with the stakeholders, namely the lecturers, remains very thin on the ground. Where structures for consultation and decision making exist, they end up being ignored, bypassed or terminated.

A case in point is the Mcast Research Committee which was dissolved by the Mcast Principal James Calleja without notice.

The nine-member committee included academics, researchers and management who worked together as equals to improve the research environment.

The Research Committee conferred re-search hours so that lecturers could substitute some lecturing time with hours dedicated to research. The abrupt termination of the committee by the principal ended this transparent process and replaced it by a far less transparent approach that relies on the patronage of two new deputy principals, eliminating the input and scrutiny of research staff in the process.

This further erodes the trust of lecturing staff in the management.

Mcast management has slammed the door on researchers in the hope that its actions become unaccountable, but public accountability of senior management will always be there.

Why is the minister sitting pretty and doing nothing about such abuse in the educational sector in Malta?

Maybe I can answer this myself. Reason being that with this government, it is all a façade, yet when one digs deeper into the situation beyond that façade, one realises that the portrayed image was actually just a photoshopped image but nothing else.

It is shameful that this is how this government is treating our children’s education and the prospects of the highest educational institutions and profession.

Justin Schembri is a Nationalist Party election candidate.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece