The agreement was signed with a Jordanian construction company and not with an American university

The prime minister spoke today at what he called the signing of an agreement between Malta and an American university.

The agreement was signed between Malta and the Jordanian construction magnate – the equivalent of Charles Polidano or Sandro Chetcuti in the Jordanian context – who will be building the campus.

No university, American or otherwise, was party to that agreement. There are only two signatories.

The Malta government and the Jordanian construction magnate say that the university will be run by DePaul University of Chicago. I imagine the Jordanian construction magnate has somebody on board to do it because a construction company can’t very well operate a university. But the point is that DePaul University is not a party to the agreement signed with Malta. At law, the Malta government knows only Sadeen Company.

The prime minister said that he is proud of how Maltese students will be able to participate in “world renowned courses at this American University”.

What he didn’t say to a public which takes it for granted that all education is free is that DePaul University is a private, fee-paying CATHOLIC university sent up by the Vincentians at the end of the 19th century.

The Malta outfit is not going to be a public-spirited charitable venture, but a business. The Jordanian construction magnate will want to make money out of it, and DePaul University will – like many other universities in North America and Britain are doing now – operate it purely as a source of revenue which will support its mainstream operation back home. The student target market will be people from the Far East and the Middle East who cannot obtain student visas for the United States, Canada or Britain.

Somewhere in the welter of government publicity, I read the detail that Maltese students will receive a stipend when attending the American university too. Given that the university is going to be private and not public, and fee-paying, this must mean that the government has negotiated some free places for Maltese students. Somewhere else I found the percentage of places that will be offered to Maltese students (for which read, free): it works out as 40 of a student population expected to be 4,000.