Malta Union of Teachers in strong statement against government changes to university law
Martin Scicluna, who drafted the legal notice for the government and who leads the commission that is the accrediting body for universities in Malta.
The Malta Union of Teachers released a strong statement today against Legal Notice 150/2015, by means of which the government has changed the law on university licensing and accreditation, by lowering the standards.
The statement also reveals, by implication, that the teachers’ union was not consulted or briefed during preparations for the legal notice.
The MUT said that the changes to the law mean that the accrediting body – in this case, the commission led by Martin Scicluna – will not be able to make certain that those who hold a university licence are operating according to established standards.
The changes to the law, the MUT says, prioritise “commercial and economic potential to the detriment of academic and educational standards”.
The international norm, the MUT said, is that a university should: (a) be multidisciplinary with different faculties, (b) have taught programmes, (c) have a continuous strong research element, and (d) “support an element of outreach in the host community”.
But the changes to the law mean that ‘universities’ in Malta will now be able to ignore three out of these four criteria, adopting just one of them.
“In reality, this means that Malta will potentially open its doors to commercial entities without any substantial educational function to operate as a university,” the MUT says. “Another implication is that Malta will operate a definition of university which is different from the established norm in most countries, thereby putting the country’s academic reputation at risk.”
It adds that it doubts there are sufficient resources to monitor “what goes on inside all higher and further education institutions”.
The MUT says it is particularly concerned that applications for university status will be considered by the accrediting body (the commission led by Martin Scicluna) if the application is described as being “in the national interest”.
“This is completely unacceptable, because it means that academic licences might be awarded on an ad hoc basis regardless of international academic standards,” the MUT says.