We really need to get a grip
This is my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
I was talking on the telephone yesterday with a Maltese person who lives in London. He said how surreal it is when, in an environment where people are worried about their jobs, people are losing their jobs, and there’s talk of another recessionary dip, he logs onto the Maltese news sites to find that the biggest thing on people’s minds is…buses.
And the main event is 30 people with scabies which, apparently, constitutes a newsworthy ‘outbreak’ and subsequent comments-board panic.
Right now, I’m feeling perversely that we need some real problems to get people to buck up and get a grip on themselves. You know, like wholesale lay-offs, homes being repossessed, 40% unemployment among young people, businesses going down like skittles, and major cuts in education and health spending.
That kind of thing, the sort that focuses people’s minds and gives them some perspective, and then maybe we won’t have to listen to the constant drone of low-level kvetching and the newspapers will get to tussle with some real stories and worthy headlines (scabies, for crying out loud).
People are so busy telling each other that the government should be taught a lesson – what lesson, how to run the economy and get its foreign policy right? – that all I can think of is how they could really do with a few lessons themselves. Like going home from the office after being made redundant, to find an eviction notice on their front door, and a repossession order on what is no longer their house.
And I apologise for bringing this up again, but really with that girl who got up and yelled and stamped at the university because the buses are not to her liking, it’s not her language that should have upset people, but her attitude. I’ve never had much truck with over-indulged brats throwing tantrums in shops while dim-witted parents timidly hold out various treats only to have them rejected amid the screams and sulks. Yet that’s all I could think about when I watched the scene on video.
I can tell you that I would have felt entirely differently if I’d known the girl in question had some major tuition fees loan hanging over her head, if she lived in a bedsit with another two people and €4 a day for food, if she spent her Sundays at the launderette. But I know she doesn’t, because this is Malta, and so that coloured my vision.
Maltese students are over-indulged in every possible way except the one that really counts – intellectual stimulation – and because of that they and others think it perfectly normal when one of them flings herself down on the floor and turns toddler-rigid over a bus.
When students rioted in London recently it was over tuition fees. That’s right – tuition fees. They pay to go to university, they pay to stay in lodgings, and they work nights to have money to live. And in between, they do their laundry, their cooking and even occasionally scrub out the bath-tub.
To do all this, they take a student loan, which they have to pay back when they’ve graduated and got a job. Except that they can’t get a job, because there aren’t any.
In the United States, student debt – based on loans taken out to go to college – has reached $900 billion. Yes, $900 billion. This is more than what all US citizens put together owe on credit cards. Many students borrow $100,000 and even more to pay for their university education, and the law does not allow them to default on those loans by declaring bankruptcy.
The debt is paid back over a 30-year period, which means that when their own children are ready to leave for college, they’re still paying off their student loans.
That, and not what we have here in Malta, is real life.
I’m not for stripping away stipends and introducing tuition fees, because there’s too much ignorance already and we can’t afford to add to it. We know that people won’t pay for their education, that if they have to borrow money to go to university they just won’t bother, and that the main reason so many go to university in the first place is because they’re programmed to make the most of anything that’s free.
If they learn anything while they’re at it, it’s bound to be better than what they didn’t know before.
So leave the stipends alone and don’t even think of tuition fees, at least not for some years until this place is a little more civilised.
But I am for a better sense of perspective and for an end to tantrums and groaning, because if we’re not careful we’re going to find ourselves with something to really sob and wail about.
And no, I don’t mean a Labour government. I mean real life.
If we’re not careful, it’s going to hit us right between the eyes. And then we won’t be moaning about buses, that’s for sure.
20 Comments Comment
Reply to Joe Micallef Click here to cancel reply
I have always said: There is NO place like Malta!
The French socialist presidential hopefuls are promising to reduce retirement age back to 60 years.
President Sarkozy had to face general strikes, demonstrations and violence to increase the pensionable age from 60 to 62.
They are also promising to employ 150,000 with the public sector. What a dishonest socialist party devoid of any vision that is.
It does sound a little bit like pre election Malta:)
Was it not the French socialists who had introduced the failed 35 hours week?
Now, one for Noel Arrigo – http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111016/local/Say-the-rosary-in-Maltese-with-gadget.389298
….and….? I thought you were going to tell them how it came about, why it was allowed to and what prospects there are after Laurel and Hardy come up with their fixit red-tape and solvit snake-oil.
Whilst the stipend system is a clear incentive for students to start reading a degree at university, the system in my opinion also helps in detaching students from reality.
It is common knowledge that working part-time jobs contributes not only financially but also in enhancing one’s personal skills and will eventually be an asset when starting a career.
During my days at University we were actually encouraged NOT to work any part-time jobs or earn extra money on the side as if we do, and declare such income we would lose the stipend. Not sure if the same still applies……
[Daphne – Yes, in fact I received no stipend because I wrote a newspaper column. I was penalised for working, while all my fellow ‘mature women students’ who lived off their husbands to a tune far greater than what I earned also received a stipend because they didn’t work. It was unbelievable. The idea of means testing was whether YOU worked, rather than whether you had a parent or spouse to live off.]
I ended up working too and received no stipend either yet the experience I gained over those 4 years justified this. Nonetheless, as you explained, it’s wrong and this must be changed or addressed.
I was thinking that our Joseph had a ‘mano in pasta’ in these bright ideas. But then I realised that I may be wrong since there is no mention of a ‘living wage’.
Your best article so far.
A couple of years ago, I graduated from Junior College, realised Malta had nothing to offer me, and left for Scotland at 18.
I was very unprepared for what I found.
No stipend meant that I had to work.
Thankfully, being in the EU meant that my tuition was covered – but I had no money to pay my rent, my food, or my living costs.
Whilst my peers and friends in Malta were partying and attending lectures, I was living on Value Noodles, Value Fishfingers, and trying to juggle four part-time jobs.
It’s not easy, and it’s different.
Ultimately that was the path that was best for me (and I could spend days talking about how I came to this conclusion), but yes – the situation in Malta is now alien to me.
I’m not sure if anything should be done about it, but I would appreciate it if Maltese students realised that screwed-up timetables and late buses happen elsewhere.
At least they have l-istipendju.
[Daphne – U l-mummy biex tahsel, tnaddaf, tghaddi u ssajjar, u d-daddy biex ihallas il-kontijiet (and yes, that’s the way it is in the vast majority of unreconstructed families).]
@Daphne:
I’m a bit late in reading your reply, but yes. I agree wholeheartedly. Sadly.
The underlying issue is that of bus transport reform. A decent and regular transport system is taken for granted in most advanced countries.
In tiny Malta we advanced from a relatively primitive transport service to a so called modern system but in reality this was even worse than the previous system. Oh progress, how many crimes are committed in your name!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk
Sadly, what your write about is the only reason why it makes sense that the PL wins the next election.
Yes, David, the present system is really worse than the previous system.
We no longer have ramshackle buses, arrogant bus drivers who do not think twice of striking and leaving passengers stranded, bus drivers who swear, bus drivers who short-change passengers, do not wear uniforms and the list is endless.
Admittedly the present system has its shortcomings but hopefully, really hopefully, we will get to the point where we will have a proper bus service. It may take a bit of time but after all we waited 40 years to have a decent public transport system.
All very good points. For an NPR report about the vote for the Euro rescue fund last week, Philip Reeves describe Malta as a place where, “the Euro debt crisis and the world financial meltdown are about as remote as the moon.”
I often tell friends that Malta is like the Shire from The Lord of the Rings. Everything can be very insular and while this is occasionally charming, it is more often ridiculous, especially when people descend into the woe-is-me.
Whoever nailed that poor dog to a cross in Mosta and then wrote about how his suffering is immeasurably worse enjoys cradle-to-grave health care and completely subsidized higher education. I wish I could suffer in such luxuries! No, I’ll be paying off my student loans until I am 50 (if I’m lucky).
But isn’t that the whole point? I’d agree we’re spoilt in many way. Malta gives its students a hell of a lot, so why is asking for a decent public system out of the question?
If we can give students so much, how come we can’t offer a half decent public system?
Can you imagine the uproar if the system was this bad in the UK?
I lived in London for a year, and I can tell you they’d make a hell of a fuss if the system was as bad as it is now is in Malta (especially when it was supposed to be an upgrade). They complain (publicly) constantly about the underground which is a billion times more efficient.
I also think its a little hard for some of you who drive to visualize the problem. The new system literally removes an extra hour or two out of your day. All that time just gone.
The fact that we’ve got it good in some areas doesn’t mean we shouldn’t complain in others.
My sister’s son, whose father is English and whose parents are divorced, has already 18 thousand sterling debt from when he was at university in London.
He already has a degree but is in Malta reading medicine at our university. His dad is not working and my sister is doing three jobs to be able to send him money.
My sister was just telling me on the phone yesterday that his 27 year old sister, who just found a job in England after many years (she is a graduate as well ) is giving her mum 200 sterl. a month to send to him.
He is living alone in Malta and he cooks for himself, does the laundry etc. He is not paying tuition fees in Malta ( 9 thousand sterling a year is now in U.K) and has no stipends.
What a far cry from our students! No wonder they are selfish and will never find them protesting for the underdog and for what is wrong.
It’s true that compared to other countries our nation’s situation is reasonably good, however that doesn’t mean we should skim over all ourshortcomings, such as the bus service you mentioned.
I was always thaught that you should compare yourself to people who are better than you, not worse.
Why shouldn’t we do the same for our country? We shouldn’t stay put with what’s going wrong just because people out there are in worse conditions, we should face these challenges because there are people out there who have much better conditions than ours!