Who would choose Gozo over London, except those with no choice at all?

Queen Mary University published a press release on its website yesterday which none of us in the press picked up.

I’m guessing that we have become too accustomed to taking the lead from the government even on stories that don’t necessarily concern only the government.

That press release says that entry requirements and selection criteria for the Malta course “will be similar” to those for the London course, and the Malta course itself will “closely match” the one in London.

Translation: entry requirements for the Malta course, and the course itself, will be less challenging because otherwise everyone will choose London instead, and anyway, how else are they going to fill places at 35,000 euros a year for a course that might as well be in the Outer Hebrides?

And that, of course, begs the obvious question as to why any prospective medical student in his or her right mind would choose Gozo over London in terms of patient exposure, campus life, university facilities and – here’s the rub – busy city life and things to do.

I won’t even spend a day in Gozo unless it’s summer and I can go to the beach.

The answer is: they wouldn’t. Nobody would – unless they had no choice. Those who go to Gozo will be the desperate ones who have no alternatives but parents with enough money to pay the 175,000 euros in fees and rent and living expenses over and above that, because they were not accepted anywhere else, including Barts and The London in London itself.