And…university standards plummet further
As though it is not bad enough already that the University of Malta’s law course has been reduced to a dumping-ground for intellectual charity cases, to the detriment of the genuinely gifted and bright students who end up being dragged down with the rest of them and left unchallenged, the university has announced today that entry requirements for the Bachelor of Laws (Honours) course have been lowered further still.
Isn’t that something of a contradiction in terms? How can you have grade E entry requirements for an honours course? Back when I was at university, you weren’t even permitted to choose the honours stream before the third year of the course, and even then you were only allowed to do it if you had obtained a minimum of an overall grade B average over the first two years in your chosen subject. You would then have to spend another two years at the university, this time in the highly intensive honours stream, where you were worked harder and grading became even stricter.
While European universities compete among themselves for the brightest and the best (or the richest fee-paying students), Malta’s university, perhaps because it is the only one in a tiny country of less than half a million people, has over the years come to be considered as a social service rather than an educational establishment, obliged to take all comers, and obviously, for free.
This mentality has continued to spiral further downwards, leading to the new todays that, as Times of Malta reports:
…prospective students wishing to follow the Bachelor of Laws (Honours) course need to present three Intermediate Matriculation passes at Grade C or above, the Senate has now decided that as from 2014, only one of these passes (English or Maltese if not offered at Advanced Matriculation Level) must be at Grade C or better, whilst the other two passes can be Grade E or better.
Moreover, the Senate has decided to remove with immediate effect the requirement of either Italian or French at Intermediate Matriculation Level for admission to the Bachelor of Laws (Honours) course.
The Intermediate Matriculation Level requirements for this course from October 2015 onwards include three subjects chosen as follows: one subject from Group 2 (Humanistic), one subject from Group 3 (Science), and a third subject chosen from any Group (English and Maltese may not be chosen since they need to be presented at Advanced Matriculation Level at Grade C or better). The requirements for 2014 regarding English and Maltese remain unchanged.
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First of all welcome back Daphne…I missed your blogposts.
Wy do I have a strange feeling about this? Are the entry requirements being lowered to help somebody in particular?
Yes, in all probability to help Joseph Cuschieri when he comes back from Brussels next year. What else could he do? The “distance learning” course never came to anything, so he needs help to get him onto something else.
Yes, my impression too. It’s happened before.
Unfortunately the LLD course is so well known for its low standards at the University of Malta that it is referred to as the ‘skip of the campus.’ I am told this is a recurring in-joke at Senate.
Yes, do lower the entry requirements so that literally every Tom, Dick and Harry can read law, and at that, any other degree!
All one needs do is take but a cursory look at our beloved House of Representatives, and he will have sufficient evidence of how any Dick can already get into the law course.
Trust me when I say that Maltese lawyers, or should I say people who read law at the University of Malta are the object of ridicule in the EU.
Fellow Europeans who spend up to 10 years studying and researching and writing papers to achieve their doctorate find themselves face to face with clearly clueless Maltese ‘dotts’ who believe themselves to be at the equivalent level.
Of course, for positions where arbitrary pre-requisites are applied to the selection process, who do you think gets chosen for the plum civil service jobs? Yep, the Maltese ‘dott’ over the German or French ‘lawyer’. All thanks to the ludicrous Bologna Process which grants equivalency to degrees gained across the EU.
The Bologna process should have triggered a re-evaluation of the degrees awarded by the University of Malta. In fact some courses such as the architecture one was changed to a Bachelor+Master track. However the law course remained untouched, lest someone dares mess with the pride of so many low-achievers with big egos.
It is very odd to see this happening in a country where the higher education sector has not yet been privatised. In England, this happens a lot and most universities (not the top ones, of course) would take anyone. The worst ones – when they have seats to fill – will even take on those who have failed their A-levels.
Does this watering down of standards reflect the average Maltese person’s poor education which itself is a reflection of the general Maltese social condition?
Education, even at the level of university is seen as a means to an end. To them, the more you persist (some would even say suffer) the greater pay cheque you’ll be able to obtain in the end. With this being the only incentive, most take to rote-learning and the collection of facts.
This not only makes them unable to reason, but you routinely have people graduating who can’t think on their feet within the area in which they are qualified. It is also the same reason anyone studying subjects like the Liberal Arts is given clueless stares, and why the Faculties of Engineering and Law are packed.
Unsurprisingly, with this atmosphere, a degree becomes a commodity, and it would be only democratic to provide as many people as you can with the commodity to allow them to earn a bigger pay cheque, as they see it.
Like we don’t already have enough mollycoddling at home, leading to the pollution of the workforce by under-achievers and adults with an absurd sense of entitlement; now we move to wet-nurse them into and through university too.
Welcome back, Daphne. You’ve been missed.
Pathetic. Don’t they realise that they devalue everybody’s degree this way? Make a university a laughing stock and nobody will rate your qualification, regardless of when it was awarded.
It boggles the mind. The Faculty of law has now become the dumping ground of academic failures who want to be called ‘dott’.
The lunacy is rife throughout the University though. The Pharmacy Department has recently amended its entry requirements due to a re-shuffling of it graduating degrees. Do you think that biology is now a compulsory subject (as you would expect)?
No, the powers that be have introduced Maths intermediate as a compulsory qualification instead, resulting (as far as I am aware) in the lowest intake of students in recent history.
I completely agree with you, Mike. I would have mad chemistry and biology A levels mandatory (not just chemistry) and to hell with maths.
After all we only ever did one module of in-depth mathematics. Anyone who had difficulty in that always found a BSc maths and physics student who was more than happy to explain. Whereas BOTH chemistry and biology are EXTREMELY important in producing a well-rounded pharmacist at the end of the 5 years.
Thanks for this piece (and many other long-awaited ones)…i have not experienced university in Malta as i had the opportunity to study abroad. However, since my eldest son now attends, i have confirmed many perceptions i had about this institution.
We all agree that the numerus clausus system is not acceptable but to have no ‘filter’ whatsoever is definitely not promoting intellectual development and discussion within those walls.
The University today is also loaded with part-time lecturers; students who don’t attend classes during an entire term (but get notes); the grounds which are one big car park – when these kids are supposed to be the frontline environmentalists or, at least, having environmental issues front of mind, etc.
They consider their stipend to be God-given and nothing is done in terms of performance-related stipends…at least get them ready for the real world.
And now, to top it all, the administrators at the University have downgraded the courses so far that it seems like the only hurdle to get into university is 2 years of sixth-form.
“The numerus clausus system is not acceptable”? It’s the numerus clausus the University needs, if we’re want to have quality academia!
[Daphne – Oh for heaven’s sake, why can’t you distinguish between a ‘numerus clausus’ (restriction of available places to restrict the number of students) and raising entry requirements to raise the standard of the university and its graduates? The two are not the same thing. Raising entry requirements results in fewer students but it is not a ‘numerus clausus’. With a ‘numerus clausus’ you can say there are just 20 places available but still give them to people with low qualifications.]
It is the only option available in courses where adequate entry requirements are already in place, and yet students keep increasing year on year.
[Daphne – You see, that’s where your reasoning is flawed. The problem is not the number of students, but the standard of those students. If students of a high standard ‘keep increasing year on year’, that’s a good thing. The problem is that the number of students is going up but their standard is going down. It is wrong and crazy to restrict the numbers by keeping out qualified people – that is what the Labour government did in the 1980s.]
LL.D = B. Comm.
In fact the Super One staff used to get a degree in communications, while now they all have a degree in law. Now they want to extend the ‘trend’ from the Super One staff to the Super One viewers.
It is true, well said.
The ages-old trick of reducing the entry requirements to accomodate the intellectually -challanged offspring of some bazuzzlu.
Lowering the standards of a course which already had low standards?
The only thing I see going higher is H.P. Baxxter’s blood pressure. Can someone please ask him to have it checked?
I had it checked last week, Ciccio. Routine medical. All systems go, all shipshape and Bristol fashion. Good thing the medic didn’t look inside my brain.
Because it’s the Dresden firestorm in there.
Perhaps you should stop foisting your secretly-held worries onto me. Perhaps you should have a word with your buddy Juanito too.
With the shining examples of “top lawyer” churned out by this august institution in the past, I wonder why they bother having entry requirements at all.
They should relocate the faculty of Law to the ETC at Hal-Far and clear up once and for all the problem of scroungers living off the dole. Give them all an LL.D and ship them off to Brussels.
They want to prove Mintoff right at all costs. Dik mhux bicca karta tal-incova?
KSU would like to clarify the Law course requirements issue which is currently featuring in the national media. Following last week’s Senate Meeting, the Law Course requirements were amended to be made more robust than they were in previous years. The requirements were only ‘eased’ when compared to the proposed requirements which were discussed in a previous Senate meeting.
One should also note that these entry requirements are for 2014 and 2015 and not for students that are to start university next week, thus it is totally incorrect to suggest that these were adjusted to accommodate someone.
The course requirements for 2015 were changed to English and Maltese A levels rather than the current English/Maltese Intermediate requirement, which is clearly not an easing of such requirements. Moreover, the Italian/French requirement for 2015 was dropped to avoid penalizing students who had already chosen other languages in their secondary school choice or who were not offered the option to study a third language, and who would be barred from entering the law course through this requirement.
A more detailed clarification will be provided later on tomorrow, following KSU’s KE meeting in the evening. Any feedback should be relayed to [email protected]
Could you please give us a reason why the Senate found it necessary to change the entry requirements for the law course? Surely you can’t argue that requirements were previously too stringent?
Because Malta needs more lawyers. No, really.
KSU = useless.
After six years of University, I don’t have to deal with them any longer.
All I can say is that they were really and truly good for giving out parking permits, as well as freebies during Freshers Week.
Well, there could be someone who aims at going to university next year and knows too well what subjects he/she has been studying.
Saying that it is totally incorrect to suggest that these were adjusted to accommodate someone doesn’t hold too much ground does it now.
We are pretty sure that it is not to accommodate someone this year, seeing that it is a bit too late for that.
Considering the choice of interesting degrees one could enroll in these days, I’m surprised people insist on studying law.