United, they will fall
Like all other issues of this nature, the question of university lecturers’ salaries is being considered in a vacuum. The lecturers are demanding more money. But what are they offering in return? It appears to be nothing beyond what they are providing already. And here lies the problem: some lecturers deserve better pay. Others deserve less. Some even deserve to lose their jobs so that better lecturers can replace them, in the best interests of the students. When good lecturers unite with bad, they are doomed to fail. Theirs is not a common cause, though they think it is, because some of them are campaigning for just remuneration while others are campaigning for unjust rewards.
By objecting to any attempt to tie them in to a gauge of their performance, bad lecturers are trying to maintain a status quo in which they get away with murder, while good lecturers are undermining their own interests because they are the very ones who stand to gain from performance monitoring and performance-adjusted pay. Academics, some of them say, should not be assessed like people who work in the entirely different field of private sector business.
They are demanding salaries far in excess of those that are the norm in the private sector even for extremely demanding positions subject to constant assessment, with the ever-present risk of being fired or made redundant. University lecturers are strangers to these pressures and will remain so, yet they are demanding to be paid more money than people for whom such pressure is a part of daily life.
I was quite taken aback when I saw the numbers being waved around by representatives of university lecturers some weeks ago. They were astronomically high, shockingly so. It wasn’t the numbers themselves which shocked me, but what those numbers told me about the people who decided upon them: that they are completely and utterly divorced from reality. The numbers bore no relation at all to salaries in the private sector, which are paid to people with the equivalent educational background as these university lecturers but who are in high-pressure jobs where their performance is assessed every day. When I brought this up with a couple of lecturers I know, the retort was that I shouldn’t make comparisons with the private sector, because the university is the university and private business is private business.
When people who work only within the university environment say things like that, they don’t help their cause. They come across as having little or no understanding of the real world that lies outside protection from reality by heavy unionisation and being on the state payroll. You don’t fix your price. The job market does. You don’t tell the job market how much you’re worth. The job market tells you. The lecturers and their representatives may have climbed down from their extraordinary claims and fixated on some figures that are more realistic – no numbers have been bandied about recently – but they are still arguing their cause based on the unrealistic belief that they can set their own price. They can’t.
The market pays people what they are worth in that market. Lecturers at our university will find that they are worth more in other markets and less in others. They will also find, if they leave university employment, that they are worth less, more or the same elsewhere in this market. They are now discovering the problem inherent in fighting as a single phalanx, the good with the bad, rather than arguing in favour of performance-related pay: that they are not paid according to their individual worth, but according to the average worth within the group. If there is a heavy presence of bad lecturers who are worth little, this drags down the average worth, and so the good lecturers end up being paid less than they are worth as individuals.
In battles of this nature, the talk is usually of ‘what we deserve’ when what it is really all about is what they are worth. Lots of people think they deserve more, but they are loath to think in terms of what they are worth in the market. Some of them, like many university lecturers, have never bothered to test their market price by leaving the safe haven of government employment. The true test of what university lecturers are worth, rather than what they deserve, comes not from figures arrived at around a discussion-table, with a calculator, a sense of entitlement and a lot of anger, but from the marketplace.
If each and every one of those lecturers were to take the plunge and put themselves out there for work, how much could they expect to be paid? Certainly not the huge sums they were shouting about when I was listening last. Some of them will be considered completely unemployable and will have to live off unemployment benefits. Others will have to take boring desk-jobs at an even lower salary than their present one. Others still will find themselves constrained to take employment which they consider beneath their capabilities, just to take home the money and pay the bills – like thousands of people do on these islands. Only the rare few will command from the private sector the kind of salaries they expect from the university, for which read the government, using money culled from those who are productive.
My private-sector mentality causes me to recoil at any suggestion that those who perform miserably – or who, like several university lecturers I know and know of, barely perform at all – and those who perform beyond the call of duty should be paid the same amount and given the same privileges. What incentive is there to do your job, beyond the entirely personal and private pressures of conscience, morality and a sense of duty, when however little or however much you do the same amount is going to plop into your current account at the end of the month?
There are some lecturers who are never available to students, who don’t turn up for lectures or who are unfailingly late, who take weeks and months to correct assignments and let students know their grades, who give no guidance at all, who enter the lecture-hall, sit down and proceed to read from a set text, never deviating from it and not encouraging discussion. I could go on, but won’t. The point is that this behaviour won’t change if they are paid more money. The opposite will happen: if they perceive that they have been rewarded for substandard performance, their behaviour will become more outrageous and unacceptable and not less so. If they are capable of change, and some are not, then the only thing that will make them improve their service is not the carrot but the stick: they have to face the threat of being ‘let go’, demoted or kicked sideways.
And this is the crux of the problem. The good lecturers, those who talk to their students, who take the trouble to prepare interesting lectures, who read and impart their knowledge, who take a prompt and efficient interest in assignments, who juggle their responsibilities well and with the barest minimum of assistance, who encourage students to take advantage of the now myriad opportunities to spend a semester or two at another university elsewhere (instead of placing as many obstacles as possible in their way), are being dragged down with the indifferent and the downright awful or hopeless.
The lecturers are fighting this battle together on the principle that united they stand, divided they fall. The mistake they make is in their definition of unity and division. If the good unite together against the bad, they are going to be successful. Otherwise, the good are going to carry on being dragged down by the bad and the inadequate. It is precisely because the good are uniting with the bad on the issue of bigger salaries, on the basis that they are all lecturers, that they have no credibility in this matter and even less support.
It’s true that they have precious little choice: lecturers must act as one group or not act at all. Yet there are intelligent means by which the good may unite together, edging out the bad, without going to the unwise extreme of sorting themselves out into the two categories of good lecturer and bad lecturer with perhaps a third category called ‘has potential’. This is to suggest – rather than run away from and scream and shout against – performance-monitoring and performance-related pay. That way, good lecturers are rewarded and bad lecturers either get a grip on themselves or tread water on the same salary for the rest of their working lives. I would suggest going one further and ensuring that jobs at the university are no longer seen or treated as a sinecure. If bad and inadequate lecturers are not removed to make way for those who are good, thousands of students suffer the consequences over the years, and the employment market outside the university ends up saturated with sub-standard graduates. This is happening already.
Yes, I think lecturers who work hard, who have genuine interest in their students and who go out of their way to bring them along should be paid more than they are at present. They are worth more than they receive. They also need the monetary incentive, which helps build enthusiasm. But I certainly don’t think that the laggards, the shirkers, the lazy bums and the ones who seem to be permanently asleep or in a daze, or who skive off lectures and never give tutorials because they are too busy elsewhere should benefit alongside the good lecturers, purely on the basis that they all do the same job. The point is that they do not do the same job. Some perform and others don’t.
There is so little respect for students that a few years ago, an entrepreneurial student group started a ‘bushfire telegraph’ initiative, alerting student-subscribers by means of text-message when lectures were cancelled unexpectedly. Every morning they would get in touch with the department secretaries and ask for information on which lectures were to be cancelled that day. The initiative eventually had to be wound up when even the department secretaries didn’t have this information or refused to cooperate efficiently with the students. So now it’s back to square one, with students taking two buses – despite the urban legend, they don’t all have cars or a driving licence – and leaving home at 6.30am to make it in time for an 8am lecture, only to end up sitting in the lecture-hall for 20 minutes and left to conclude that, oh, the lecturer couldn’t make it – again.
The principle of equal pay for equal work isn’t only about gender differences. It also means that if you expect to be paid as much as X then you have to work as much as X. Raising salaries is not going to solve this fundamental problem of some lecturers working hard while others appear to live in some alternative universe where it is possible to collect a salary for floating around for most of the day while he who pays the piper is not permitted to call the tune, or even to check whether the piper is actually playing at all.
Let’s say I’m a university lecturer who works hard and takes great interest in my students, and that tomorrow the government puts my salary up to the extraordinary level I have demanded, and also agrees to the even more extraordinary annual increments. For a while, I’m going to be happy about it, thrilled even. Then I’ll begin to notice that colleague X and colleague Y, who have had their salaries bumped up by the same amount, are still not working and still not taking an interest in their students. And I’ll look at myself and think: here I am, working all the hours God sends, spending evenings marking assignments and weekends planning lectures, while David and Susan bum around all day doing just enough to get by, and sometimes not even that, and they’re paid the same. And guess what? The anger and resentment will begin to simmer again.
Because if lecturers are true to themselves, they will admit that their anger is not so much about what they are paid, but that the good are paid as much or as little as the bad. The bad ones are in there agitating alongside the rest, because if they are being paid for doing next-to-nothing now they might as well try to get even more money for doing the same. But what the good ones are really saying is that they want recognition for all the hard work they do, and rightly so. When they ask for a high salary and yearly increments, it’s not just about the money. What they are demanding, at root, is recognition. The mistake they make is to demand this recognition for all, even the losers who flop around all day and behave like they need to be injected with adrenalin.
The way things are, of course students have turned against their lecturers instead of backing them up in their call for higher salaries. Very many lecturers are not respected by their students, who feel aggrieved because they know they are being sold short. A few lecturers are still reading out – yes, reading out, as though their adult students are illiterates who can’t read a print-out themselves – from the same ‘notes’ they were using 15 years ago. Others are drafted in to teach on the basis that they have a master’s degree in the subject and a friend of a friend who got them the job, but absolutely no communication skills to speak of. With all the opportunities for student exchanges that EU membership has brought with it, students are spending more time at universities elsewhere and this opens their eyes to just how much better the teaching and facilities are ‘there’ – except for Italian universities, where things are worse.
I imagine that the students would very much like to support the calls for greater pay by their favourite lecturers, the ones who take an interest in their progress, and who spend time developing lectures and marking assignments. But they know that in doing this, they will also be supporting, inadvertently, the same calls for greater pay by the lecturers they dislike because they are so hopeless at their job.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
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Having graduated from the blessed University of Malta a couple of years ago, I cannot but agree with you wholeheartedly on this one.
Although I am a lecturer myself and could therefore be accused of bias, it seems to me that this blog, while making various correct observations, is mostly based on the following flawed assumptions:
(1) That lecturers are offering nothing in return for the extra pay they are demanding. We believe, on the contrary, that we are faced with a series of new demands from the University administration which will significantly increase our workload. For example, we are being expected to work from 8am to 8pm, to renounce to 20 days of our leave allowance and to give the University most of the intellectual property arising from any knowledge we generate. The message we are sending with our Work to Rule is precisely this: if you want us to assume increased burdens, then pay us accordingly. Otherwise, we will stick to our previous commitment for our previous pay, thank you very much.
(2) That it is possible to equate university with a private business, while exempting our customers (students) from the obligation to pay for what we produce. Not only that, but we are actually expected to pay our customers to consume our product! This makes your advocacy of business principles pretty one sided, to say the least. A more consistent approach would be to run the university as a private business and to expect students to pay for their education, with government subsidized scholarships for bright students who come from poor backgrounds. As it is we academics cannot even create a new day course and charge students who wish to take it. How on earth in these circumstances can the correct price of our product and therefore our salaries be determined?
I could go on, but prefer not to rant…
[Daphne – There are strong arguments against payment for university education. You know as well as I do that people here didn’t go to university even when it was as free of charge as it is now but there were no stipends, because their families wouldn’t or couldn’t support them financially for three or four years or more beyond the age of 18. I know that there are arguments for and against the stipends system, and I have made many of them myself. On the one hand, removing the stipends system but leaving the university free would be a weeding-out process which keeps only those who have the most determination and drive (and those with generous parents). On the other hand, we really can’t afford to have many thousands of people in the workforce who leave education at the age of 17 or 18. I can see your anger at the absence of ‘paying customers’. The reality is that the university does have paying customers, though indirectly. It is funded entirely by public monies which come from the tax-payer. So while your students may not be paying fees, their parents are paying the taxes which, in turn, pay your salary.
I spent five years at the University of Malta in the 1990s. I was your contemporary there in fact – I remember you in at least one anthropology course. So I speak from direct experience. Some lecturers were excellent: committed, energetic, interested, giving tutorials, always accessible, widely read and some even published articles. But others were unbelievable rubbish. One of them actually used to sit there in front of 30 postgraduate students, all in their mid to late 20s and early 30s, and read aloud for two hours, his head down at his desk, giving us a 10-minute break after an hour. When we pointed out to him that we can all read, and that what he should do is give us copies of his text to read at home, so that lecture-room time could be used for discussion instead, he merely told us that this was his system and he wasn’t going to change it. A lot of the students on that course came from other countries and were paying for the privilege of listening to a strange man read aloud for two hours. Do you think higher pay will improve the service? I don’t think so. The good lecturers were good on their pay of the time. I don’t think higher pay will make them better. It will simply be a way of retaining them within the university. And higher pay certainly is not going to improve the service delivered by poor lecturers. The point is that you cannot raise salaries across the board – or rather, you can, but there are negative consequences with no guarantee of improving service. Remember that it is your students’ parents who are paying the salaries of you and your colleagues, and not some abstract thing called ‘il-gvern’. They have a right to object, and have a direct interest in how their money is spent. You know that you are not really expected to work for 12 hours a day because nobody monitors you. When I visited the university in July to pick up some papers for one of my sons who was away, it was like a ghost village. There was nobody behind most of the doors on which I knocked. I really understand the calls for higher pay from lecturers who work hard. I’ve made this clear. But I cannot countenance a situation in which lecturers like the hopeless one I described are paid that kind of money for selling their students short.]
Prosit, Daphne.You gave a good lecture to the lecturers about the real world.
@daphnecaruanagalizia
A very well balanced article and reply to Mr.Zammit. You mentioned the Italian university scene: I have been following articles on their universities on the newspaper ‘Il Giornale’, on their website and, as you said, the situation is horrendous, full of nepotism and very little research. There is a lot of nepotism and also little research at our university, especially where we have great need for it (solar energy, energy efficient buildings, wind energy,etc); the only fair solution is performance-related pay monitored by a government-appointed board which should do the annual assessment against set objectives.
I think that the situation with university lecturers is symptomatic of the situation with civil servants in general. There are the good, the adequate, the mediocre and the bad spread throughout the civil service and no government has ever managed to change the generally prevalent mentality that the ‘government’, in all its ramifications, is a soft and generous employer. The ultimate solution is to reduce the size of the public sector (I think it still provides employment to about 40% of the labour force) by privatisation and by contracting out as much work as possible to qualified and capable persons and organisations. That way, generally speaking, there will be competition and only the best providers will provide. This is already being done in certain sectors, mainly due to EU competition regulations.
In the case of university lecturers, whilst it may be possible to outsource some lectures, outsourcing whole courses would be very difficult and performance-based remuneration would be more practical.
I think the point I was making was not so much that all students should be obliged to pay for their university education, but that if this does not happen it is well-nigh impossible to determine the market price for the services of academics (and hence their salaries). What the Government, or taxpayers, or even academics feel is right to pay for having a good university is not a market in this sense. As I am sure you know, in micro-economics the point of intersection between demand and supply is one which has to be reached by the market and not one which the government should try to anticipate in advance. At this point we are reduced to saying that the market is what other European universities are prepared to pay academics (UMASA’s argument), or what the Government (or the taxpayer) is prepared to fork out on the basis of necessarily invidious comparisons between lecturers and business people (your argument). At least UMASA’s position has the benefit of being somewhat more objective.Certainly market based arguments have to be handled with care in these circumstances.
I agree with you that performance related pay should be introduced if academic salaries are to increase substantially. However I dislike the binary logic which dictates that the University education is either something we must pay all students to take or else something all students must pay for, that students are either in favor or against academics and that one is either making an argument in favor of increasing academics’ salaries or students’ stipends. First of all, we can start to introduce a market by allowing us to charge fees for new day courses we introduce, thus motivating academics to think in a more entrepreneurial manner and to develop new courses, while retaining the student population we already have. Secondly, the students’ own statements are more nuanced then you report them to be. Their latest stand is to castigate the government, together with academics, for “not putting its money where its mouth is”.
Incidentally, the fact that most students are automatically given a stipend tends to corrupt both students and lecturers. How do you expect lecturers to be motivated and eager to teach if their students think they are doing them a favour by attending classes? Also it continues to degrade the status and self-respect of lecturers if there are first expected to work a totally unreasonable twelve hours a day and then told, wink-wink, nudge-nudge that “you really don’t have to work these hours”.
In reality there is a basic contradiction in your blog as on the one hand you argue that lecturers should not lump themselves in the same basket, but on the other you tend to make certain assumptions which reinforce this. For instance, it is not only students who can reason out that it is sometimes preferable to read up on a subject at home, but also lecturers. The point of going to sit in a University office in July, when the University is in Summer recess, instead of carrying on with one’s research, reading and correction of exam scripts in some other location completely eludes me. Like me, many lecturers believe (apparently mistakenly) that they are considered as professionals and reason that they should be in charge of structuring their work commitments. Hence the empty office does not mean that the lecturer was not working, only that she chose to carry out her work in a different location, or that she was in the office after all but decided not to interrupt her work to answer a knock on the door from someone who was calling outside student hours. It is the “bad” lecturers, as you call them, who tend to reason that they should consider themselves as employees and only do the minimum of what their employer asks of them who would agree with you that they deserve to be paid higher salaries simply for sitting in the office at a time when they could be reading up on the latest developments in their field while sitting in their study at home.
I must say that my recollection of the Anthropology programme at the time when we were colleagues is even more positive than yours. Like Dr Mark Falzon, who wrote about it elsewhere, I considered it to be an excellent course which more than reached international standards. I still treasure a photo of Jack Goody, the Emeritus Cambridge Professor of Anthropology, who was one of the visiting lecturers. He is standing in front of a stand organised by us students to display, by means of food, some structural affinities between Easter and Ramadan. You also figure in the photo and I can email you a copy should you wish.
[Daphne – Yes, please send me that picture: [email protected]. My experience of the anthropology course was certainly very positive, and I must have somehow communicated that because all three of my sons read anthropology as a secondary subject. The archaeology course was also very good. What the two had in common was that lecturers were working with small groups and that all lecturers were markedly driven by enthusiasm. I understand that in the summer lecturers may prefer to read at home rather than in a hot, dull office. But then this doesn’t square with objections that they are being obliged to work 12 hours a day. I think it is also important to understand that at a salary level of the kind your colleagues are demanding, in the private sector there are no working hours. You are expected to work as long and as hard as necessary, sometimes on weekends and right into the night. This is what bothers me particularly: that there is nothing in the lecturers’ demands that shows they understand the correlation between high salaries and high performance, including no restrictions on working hours. The highest salary level being demanded by lecturers – unless the demands have changed over the last few weeks – is roughly equivalent to what the CEO of a large company earns. That CEO has no working hours and can’t refuse a late-evening meeting on the grounds that he will end up working 14 hours instead of 12 that day. And if he doesn’t deliver the goods, it’s goodbye. I think they are quite wrong, too, to demand salaries equivalent to those paid by ‘other universities’ on the grounds that this is their market. Which other European universities might those be? Certainly not Romania’s or Bulgaria’s, I would imagine. No, instead they have targetted the best-paying, conveniently leaving out of the equation the question of whether those universities would actually hire them, and whether they would be considered good enough. You are much more familiar than I am with the impossible competition for these posts at top European universities, so no – that is not their market, because only at most one or two are good enough to teach at a top-ranked British university.]
@ David Zammit: I understand that if your workload is increased , and your holidays are reduced you ask for more pay. On the other hand,with the same reasoning if the lecturers are not giving a full day’s work because of the work-to-rule, they should not get full pay. If they do this in the private sector they would have been locked out and offered a three-year contract. As a taxpayer I would support higher pay for lecturers when I see them treating our students fairly. About paid university evening courses I have experienced the undue tension one lecturer can create on some 90 students for two long years (arriving late and unprepared, repeating lectures, handing out results three months late).
Lecturers in our university have qualifications from different universities. Do these qualifications carry the same weight? Should a lecturer with a doctorate from Oxford be paid the same salary as one with a doctorate from an Italian university?
How are other universities run?
How can certain lecturers and professors give 100% when they have other demanding commitments which are not directly connected to their university work: TV programmes, political party work, Government appointments, parliament and what have you?
Daphne is pointing to the root cause of the problem.
The lecturers’ union is using the poor students as pawns in its struggle. It is high time they show some respect to their paying customers.
I am actually surprised at the considerable numbers of faculties, departments and professors prevailing at the University of Malta, when I consider that native Maltese do not pay fees and, moreover, get paid while attending university.
I stand to be corrected.
[Daphne – All the money comes from taxes, Leo.]
[Daphne – All the money comes from taxes, Leo.]
And yet, there are no funds to buy medicines, which are necessary for treatment of patients in a “free health service” and in a state of the art hospital.
It is sad that the Maltese electorate believes/believed all that Lawrence Gonzi, Alfred Sant, Joe Muscat, Josie Muscat, AD et al dish out.
Daphne,
I ask this only because you mentioned. If our University is so poor, with “at most only one or two” lecturers that make the grade, how come you didn’t try hard to persuade your sons to study elsewhere?
Mark
[Daphne – Actually you’re one of the few I had in mind. I used the expression ‘one or two’ as in ‘a few’, not literally one or two. All three sons were at university concurrently, being only a year apart in age. This means that it would have been prohibitively expensive for us to maintain all three overseas at the same time. The agreement was that if they got an honours degree here, we would finance their postgraduate studies elsewhere. Now it appears that, for one reason or another, the staggering plans have collapsed and their postgraduate courses are going to coincide anyway….
While undergraduates here, they joined the Erasmus and Cemmenti programmes and spent semesters elsewhere. Incidentally, it wasn’t only the difference in the quality of the teaching and the facilities that struck them, but in the level of student participation. As one of them put it, in a Maltese lecture-room, five per cent of the students participate and the other 95 put their heads down and take notes. Their Erasmus experience was the reverse. Unfortunately, our university places myriad obstacles in the way of students who wish to participate in the Erasmus programme. A group of students who experienced these obstacles got together and sent a letter listing the problems to the university rector. They didn’t receive so much as an acknowledgement. This was two years ago. One of my sons actually had the grades obtained at another university downgraded on his return here, and when he objected, he was told that ‘they’ use a different grading system ‘there’. When he pointed out that it was ‘there’ that he had sat for those exams and that ‘their’ lecturers had marked the papers, so ‘their’ grades counted and not ‘ours’, he received no joy.]
@Daphne
Yes certainly I will send you the photo once I return to my office. I admit to not being in my office at the moment, although my excuse is that I was actually heading there before I read the blog and decided, for once, to spend some time on defending myself and my colleagues. I usually spend my working time when I am not teaching working and not in self-promotion, another difference between many lecturers and many businessmen, who must advertise in order to attract customers. As regards the anthropology programme, I agree that one reason for the quality of the course was the high staff/student ratio. Unfortunately, this ratio cannot be maintained in other courses, for example law, because of political pressure to make the course accessible to more students,leading to a massive inflation in student numbers without a corresponding salary increase, which of course is one of the main reasons for UMASA’s pay demands. As regards working 12 hours/day, this is not currently expected of us, but it is envisaged in the new draft collective agreement, of which the salary claims formed part. And increased monitoring of lecturers to make sure that they comply with new working hours also forms part of the package. There is, of course, a basic problem with expecting lecturers to approach their work with the attitudes of CEO’s when they are treated, particularly through these new monitoring arrangements, as the lowliest of desk-bound employees. But that is precisely my point: you cannot have your cake and eat it. You have to decide: either treat us as (actual or potential) entrepreneurs and pay us as such, with work related to performance and here I agree with you, Daphne, or lower your expectations. You get what you pay for.
As regards working after hours, it would be useless and rather self serving to list the many occasions when I and many other colleagues work in this way. Who would believe me if I were to say that I regularly work up to 2am in my office at University? Or the number of times I have woken up at 6am to review my lecture notes? The main point on which I agree with you is that CEO salaries should go to those who work like CEO’s. There may be more of those than you would imagine.
As regards the other European universities we compare ourselves to, I believe Cyprus was mentioned. To my mind this is an entirely defensible comparison.
@John Schembri, the main point of the work to rule is to ensure that we continue to work in terms of the previously defined expectations codified in the old Collective Agreement and are not expected to increase our work performance any further without a corresponding increase in pay.
Whilst agreeing with the statement that lecturers are asking much more than what this country can afford to pay them, it is another case of chickens coming home to roost after the elections. With all the promises made by the GonziPN charade before the election, everyone is now demanding his/her pound of flesh. It will be interesting to observe what happens next.
Hi all, I’m back from a horrendous Christmas and an equally horrendous holiday!
This article bring to mind my days at university. Some of my lecturers were truly excellent and dedicated, the majority were average, but there were some that were truly and hopelessly incompetent.
The absolute worst case was a certain part-time M.U.S.E.U.M so-called lecturer. He was about 36 and his mummy brought him to university each morning complete with Snoopy lunch-box, shirt, trousers pulled up over his navel and over-sized tennis shoes. His lectures were straight from the text book. We all tended to stop going to his lectures and honest to God, we still got A+ in his exams – why? Simply because his exam papers were IDENTICAL year after year, WORD FOR WORD. Anybody who has read for a degree in IT in Malta will know who he is and tell you the same.
And this jackass expects a raise?
How much are they asking for anyway? What is the top salary they want?
Daphne, you seem to be amazed at a lecturer who read at students, from his notes, over a two-hour period. I, in turn, know a lecturer who sat at his desk, switched on his tape-recorder and obliged students to listen to his recorded voice for an hour, while he slept away on the desk to the monotonous sound of his own voice. How’s that for a good lecture?
I’ve been sent the following information:
CAMPUS DEBATE: The UMASA-Government Impasse
Host: Malta Youth Press Club
7 January 2009
Time: 12:00 – 13:00
KSU Common Room
Is the University of Malta delivering on quality of education? Are academics harbouring unrealistic financial expectations? Who is to blame now that students are caught in the wake of industrial action: government or academics? What do students think about the situation?
University and Junior College academics are dissatisfied with their current financial arrangements and are calling for substantially higher wages, which government has termed ‘unrealistic’. Following directives which could directly affect the upcoming examination period, the situation seems to be at an impasse.
Malta Youth Press would like to invite you to participate in a debate to discuss these issues.
PANEL OF CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
KSU President Roberta Avellino
UMASA President Dr Victor Buttigieg
Matthew Mizzi
All academics, students and young journalists are invited to attend, ask questions, and participate in the debate.
Malta Youth Press will ensure that the debate is carried out in a civilised manner, and would like to remind all interested individuals to respect and tolerate diverging views.
Daphne, I liked your article, I was a bit confused where to stand in this issue. My first opinion was against the lecturers for using students as a bargaining chip, but then again I thought how else could they strike? Bakers stop baking bread, transport workers halt transport and so on.
Also, I understood that the PN administration wants our university to perform better in research and so on. Therefore they want the lecturers to work harder, which should mean they should be compensated for it.
Yet I struggle to believe that people with such a high level of job security will get a high salary and still work harder.
What has happened here, has happened in every institution that employs the socialist approach, that of high job security, a sickness that we students have to deal with – lecturers not putting their 100%, attrition rates mean nothing to them, lecturers not showing up for work, lecturers who have zero communication skills and so on.
This does not stand for all lecturers obviously, but the high job security keeps the lecturer’s apathy high. So my suggestion to the government is not a complex one: instead of saying “no”, offer a different scheme.
Scheme 1: Private sector wage with private sector job security, and with yearly performance reports with goals to satisfy.
Scheme 2: Same old public sector wage with public sector job security.
Daphne,
I wasn’t trying to hit below the belt. It was a genuine question – and I emphasise, I only mentioned your sons because you brought it up. I agree, one would have to be super-rich to see 3 boys through degrees at a half-decent British University. However, the fact that you thought (very rightly too) that honours degrees from UoM would prepare them for post-grad elsewhere, sort of proves my point that we are not so crap after all. The ‘one or two, at most’ comment was extremely unfair. I know it’s a figure of speech, but it’s one that means ‘a tiny minority’. Which is untrue. You know as well as I do that, at least in the Faculty of Arts (I am not implying anything, just that I’m ill-qualified to discuss others), easily 80% of lecturers are qualified and do a good job. It is also a two-way process. Students who show initiative and interest almost invariably get their fair share of reciprocal attention. True, there is the odd disaster story, in Malta as at Oxbridge, Ivy League, or wherever.
Also, we really shouldn’t confuse ‘performance’ with ‘the market’. We’re all for performance-related pay (of which there already is some semblance – people who do not publish, for example, will not get promoted), but as for justifying our work vis-a-vis some notion of market demand … well, you know that doesn’t quite work. Where on earth does one begin to sell papers on caste, or ritual?
To the ‘Moggy’, ‘David Buttigieg’, etc., just one point, with respect: In bashing us, you are devaluing your own qualifications. If we deserve a pay cut because we’re dire, it follows you do too, because your degrees – having been taught and examined by us – are vacant.
In truth, I’ve never seen people enjoying pooh-poohing their alma mater so much.
Some Interesting Figures
Lecturer Request: Average Salary: Euro 51,000aprox
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080930/local/government-makes-take-it-or-leave-it-offer-to-lecturers
UK Lecturer (After 06 Strike)Average Salary:Euro 45,000aprox
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/nov/17/lecturerspay-highereducation
Governement Offer: Average Salary Euro 31000approx
Current situation:Average Salary Euro 29000approx
“There are some lecturers who are never available to students, who don’t turn up for lectures or who are unfailingly late, who take weeks and months to correct assignments and let students know their grades, who give no guidance at all, who enter the lecture-hall, sit down and proceed to read from a set text, never deviating from it and not encouraging discussion. I could go on, but won’t. The point is that this behaviour won’t change if they are paid more money. The opposite will happen”
I wonder if some goverment minister ever published some sort of attendance sheet concerning university lecturers and professors as a reply to a parliamentary question and another list showing how many full-time professors and lecturers had very demanding full-time jobs elsewhere (excluding those whose job description includes teaching at university).
Right, I’ll go out on a limb here: Maltese university lecturers deserve no more than they get right now. They want higher salaries because they see themselves as academics, but the whole point of a university is not just teaching, but research, seeing as we follow the British system of having research units within the university, and making no distinction between lecturers and researchers. Now the UOM performs quite poorly in terms of research activities. In most faculties, courses are structured according to the available lecturers, not vice-versa. I’ve never heard of a lecturer being fired. Some of them, especially the science/IT/engineering egg-heads, hold an additional private sector job, and it’s anyone’s guess what their priorities are.
Of course you have a few good lecturers who fritter away their potential at the UOM, and who deserve a higher salary, but salaries aren’t decided on an individual basis. The best thing UMASA could do is to look at cases of money being squandered on some of its own members. Such as a certain chap who’s in the sixth year of a PhD in the UK, funded by the UOM, and is still receiving a lecturer’s salary.
Or perhaps they’re miffed at the MCST chairman’s salary.
@H.P. Baxxter
Fine by me. We will freeze the University and will work in terms of the previous Collective Agreement. No problem.
It is uselss saying that there are the bad and the good lecturers. It is the same story with the bus drivers. What counts is reality. Every family has a relative or two, if not their own children, who go through university and most of us can speak through experience.
No, the lecturers do not qualify for the pay they are asking for. Most of them, even if they are employed full time with the university, consider their teaching there as a part-time job. They have a lot of other ‘jobs’ to see to. One such lecturer refused to answer three last questions during the last lecture before exams. ‘I have other business to attend to and I must be off.’ Most probably he still had to draw up some report for his favourite political party.
When my husband was following a postgraduate course in the afternoons he used to take leave from work, only to arrive at university to find out that the lecturer wasn’t going to turn up. This did not happen only once or twice.
Somebody here has suggested that students’ families should be means-tested. This would be a disaster for we know how income tax returns are filed and we will end up with really wealthy children being given stipends.
What the lecturers at the university should do is to clean up their act, give their due and most of all start respecting their students. And before anyone starts harping about ‘some’ students and their behaviour, I say that this doesn’t justify their general behaviour. Silly and disrespectful students should be dealt with individually.
[Daphne – Yes, and the same goes for silly and disrespectful lecturers, who should be isolated with the cooperation of their own colleagues.]
Good thrust Mark Anthony Falzon. I’m still waiting for some proper naming and shaming by those who would throw mud at probably the only public institution in the country whose employees could stand up to international scrutiny. How many out there are aware, or care to be aware, that no one can be promoted even to associate professor without their publications being submitted to at least two independent assessors chosen anonymously by a top British educational institution?
Other than that I just want to add that all this talk of private sector practice in Malta is only partly relevant. What private sector, when no one builds a hotel unless the government donates public land free of charge, when providers of goods and services expect their business to be cushioned by government contracts, or protected by dedicated legislation? And of course, when your political allegiance can be a critical factor.
[Daphne – Dominic, I agree with your references to the mentality (and practices) of some people and businesses operating in the private sector. But as with university lecturers, the disparaging reference is to some and certainly not to all. It is precisely people like you and Mark Anthony who suffer the direct and indirect consequences of student and employer dissatisfaction with many lecturers who more or less take their money and run. Why are you so willing to let yourselves be dumped in the same barrel? I don’t imagine that anyone in their right mind, or who has direct experience of your teaching methods, and knows your approach to research, would have the slightest objection to your claims for better pay. But if this means that X and Y – and I really don’t want to get into identifying people here, and have deleted all names with negative references that have come in – get a free ride off your back, and off public funds, then yes, of course we are going to object. The problem is that what we have here is not a call for equal pay for equal work (or worth), but for salaries to be raised across the board, with increases going even to those who are not worth even their present salary. And yes, I do know of the promotion system, but this doesn’t help resolve a crucial issue: if a lecturer is content to stay at that level, not research, and serve his students ill, then he stays on. Nobody has any doubt about the research standards of professors and associate professors. Sadly, those are not the individuals with whom students come into contact most often, or who teach most courses. And please do remember that I went through the system myself, for a full five years – as a mature adult with years of work experience, and so better able to identify the problems. In all this agitation, I am surprised that those who teach are leaving those they teach out of the equation all together.]
“Silly and disrespectful students should be dealt with individually.”
Might I add that students tend to become silly and disrespectful when the lecturer is hopeless and/or boring!
I’ve just seen the salaries they want. They’ve got to be kidding!
Do they not remember that there are plenty of lecturers in the EU who earn far less than what they get and quite honestly are miles better then a lot of the lecturers at university?
Whilst I was at university here every single foreign lecturer was dedicated, made that extra effort and genuinely tried help the students – Mike Rosner and V Nezval come to mind. Top notch the both of them.
Whilst I am in full agreement that a good part of any salary raise should be performance based, performance should not only be measured through lectures (this by the way is only a third of the academic work, he other two being administration and research).
As for the UK comparison, the stated pay is the basic pay, it is known that in most cases this is augmented at least by 100% through consultancies (done through the university’s services) and research projects. In our case this does not exist.
And being an active researcher, as far as I am concerned, the biggest issue is not the salary increase but the lack of serious research funding as well the lack of an adequate intellectual property compensation. These two issues need to be tackled in a serious way otherwise we shall risk losing our best researchers to other universities.
[Daphne – Surely the university, of all places, has access to people who are trained in, and who might even teach, public affairs, and who can communicate these points to the public? Members of the public are stakeholders in this issue, yet the union is addressing only the government.]
Where are the good lecturers in medicine? I could only remember a couple. The majority would read from notes, and their exams where the same year after year so you would know what questions are to be asked beforehand. Truly shocking.
Of course, if you sat in front, talked to the lecturer after the ‘lecture” and basically kissed the lecturer’s butt (some students even bought presents) you would be assured of a pass. Otherwise forget it.
@ Christian Scerri
Have you considered emigrating in order to pursue research abroad? Malta is now an EU member country and many doors have been opened.
@ Lino Cert
The information, which you have offered re medical studies in Malta, is shocking. Please tell us more.
@Periklu
At the moment, moving out of Malta would disrupt my kids – they are at that critical time, basically sixth form and pre-O level. On the other hand, we (both myself and my wife) have our research contacts with foreign universities and this offers us the right opportunities (though maybe not the right salary – all of the research work is done on a non-contributive level – just for the publication of the research papers).
In addition, I have still not lost all hope – though I might be considered a fool!
When I moved to university from the civil service 15 years ago I accepted a decrease in my income and I’d still be getting a higher salary today had I remained in a government department. A university career however is a much more interesting and satisfying experience so I don’t regret my decision.
As a lecturer I would obviously be delighted if the unions’ requests were accepted and we got the extraordinary pay-rise they are asking for but this doesn’t stop me from disagreeing with the way that UMASA is handling the issue. They have got their priorities wrong and, in concentrating so much on salaries, they are giving the impression that money is the only incentive that academics look for, ignoring other aspects such as professional satisfaction and social status.
It is true that we have to carry out tiresome chores such as setting test papers and correcting assignments (the latter being also depressing, given the horrendous English we have to wade through… but that is another story) but then we get loads of time to study our favourite subjects, acquire knowledge, improve our skills, etc., all of which more than make up for the boring bits.
We should be asking for a moderate increase in salaries and a hefty increase in resources – instead of expecting the university to spend so much on salaries, we should be insisting that it invests in labs, libraries, equipment, software and whatever else is needed for research. The university should make it easier for us to carry out proper field-work and should also provide more assistance to departments to compete for EU funds. Even though this would not put more money in our individual pockets it would still be a huge improvement in our working conditions and would be more acceptable for society.
@Daphne
“As one of them put it, in a Maltese lecture-room, five per cent of the students participate and the other 95 per cent put their heads down and take notes.”
We have a parrot-learning-style culture where most students study by heart and regurgitate everything in the exam while not deigning to understand the concepts themselves. That’s why they get a culture shock when they go to work. The boss expects work not answers out of a textbook. Sadly, our students are trained to pass exams and not be professional professionals.
@ Antoine Vella: My thoughts exactly.
Antoine Vella: “they are giving the impression that money is the only incentive that academics look for”
That’s exactly the wrong sort of message. I’m sure your thoughts on the need for better research resources are shared by many of your colleagues. Why have you let your voices be drowned out by the sound of demands for bigger salaries?
@Mark Anthony Falzon:
Since when is saying the truth “bashing”? Strictly speaking I cannot be bashing you. The instance I mentioned took place (more than once) more than twenty years ago. If you were Daphne’s contemporary at University, I preceded you there by about ten years.
[Daphne – My contemporaries at university were 10 or 11 years younger than I am, because I went to university in my late 20s and not at 18. So you’ll have to allow for that.]
Ooops…no….it was David Zammit who was at Uni at the same time that Daphne C.G. was.
[Daphne – My contemporaries at university were 10 or 11 years younger than I am, because I went to university in my late 20s and not at 18. So you’ll have to allow for that.]
I have allowed for that, and I am spot on. Ten years would be right.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090105/local/national-youth-council-calls-on-university-students-to-support-ksu
As someone with an undergraduate degree (History) from UM who went on to study abroad and now teaches college students in the United States, I share Mark-Anthony’s view that good, even excellent, teaching does take place at UM. In my view, people like Mark-Anthony Falzon and Dominic Fenech would be an asset in any Sociology or History department in any university. What may be lacking (and I admit that I am not very familiar with employment contracts for UM faculty) is a mechanism for dealing effectively with faculty members who do not perform adequately in teaching, research and service. Perhaps if such a system is implemented or, if it’s already there, made more transparent, the salary demands by faculty will be viewed more sympathetically by more people.
@ Moggy
[Since when is saying the truth “bashing”? Strictly speaking I cannot be bashing you. The instance I mentioned took place (more than once) more than twenty years ago. If you were Daphne’s contemporary at University, I preceded you there by about ten years].
You seem to have had appropriate political connections. Are you now still at university (as a teacher) or have you moved on to private industry?
CAMPUS DEBATE: The UMASA-Government Impasse.
Change of details about the university debate:
Date: 08 January 2009
Time: 14:00 – 15:00
Location: KSU Common Room
Street: University of Malta
[Periklu – You seem to have had appropriate political connections. Are you now still at university (as a teacher) or have you moved on to private industry?]
Don’t be silly, Dangerman.
Dear Daphne,
First of all, a very well-balanced article that made interesting reading. Unfortunately I regret to say that it does not offer a viable solution to the reality that exists in some departments of the University of Malta.
Following the change in political administration in 1987, the ways and means in which the ranks of the academia were restored, and individuals promoted within said ranks were, to say the least, obscure. However, as various reports in the media over the years have indicated, a system of friends of friends existed, with individuals who were not necessarily deserving achieving status within the institution. These individuals have, over the years, enjoyed the status of untouchables, and therefore even the highest ranks of the University leadership find themselves powerless to deal with incompetents who enjoy political protection. Hence the conclusion: if there are individuals within this University who do not deserve pay rises, politicians can blame no one but themselves.
The situation became even more dire as, in the new era of the post-1987 University, students got their first degrees and, mostly, went abroad to study for doctoral degrees, in the hope of returning and pursuing an academic career. Sadly for them, the incompetents ushered in through political protection, realising the threat that these new Ph.D.s posed to the revelation of their incompetence, used all means – fair or foul – to ensure that these individuals never got the chance they craved. One department in question lost more than five such doctoral graduates – luckily for the country at least some of them moved to allied departments. And all the Minister of Education could say, years before later ironically lamenting Malta’s lack of Ph.D.s, was: “What did you expect? That just because you got a Ph.D. you were going to have an academic career?” So the next time the government points a finger at the university and hints that academics are not deserving, let it remember that yes….one finger points at the university, but four fingers point at the politician/s who can only, deep down, say…mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. In this climate, it comes as no surprise to learn that the performance-based system you propose will not – indeed does not – work, quite simply because when no political protege trusts the next one to objectively judge his/her output, the criteria for achieving the bonus are not based on how high you can reach, but on reaching the minimum necessary to qualify.
You claim that the incompetents will not find jobs in the private sector or overseas industry. True enough – they won’t even try. They are comfortable as things stand. However, the competent can and will find such opportunities and herein lies the danger – that a portion of said competents will pack their bags and leave, increasing, by default, the proportion of incompetents (against whom so many appear to be ranting) in the university who, being incompetents, will be totally unable or, worse, uninterested, in not compromising the level of education of our graduates or rendering the output necessary to pull Malta off the bottom of the European science and technology rankings. Even worse, they will be incapable of achieving the output indicators necessary to ensure that the European Union coughs up the 50 million Euros ERDF and ESF investment the government repeatedly quotes.
The government claims that we do not appreciate the realities of the current economic situation. Tall words from people whose salary is probably twice my own yet take their kids to school in the morning in a car that I pay for through my taxes, driven by a person whose salary is paid for through my taxes, and guzzling petrol or diesel that is paid for through my taxes. The reality of the current economic situation is that my wife has to work full-time instead of taking a part-time break to raise the kids, because the government does absolutely nothing to ensure that part-time teachers are given comparable conditions of work as full-timers and paid pro rata with pro rata vacations instead of being slave-driven by the hour spent in class.
Sure, I lend a hand at home…as much as I can. In all honesty, I could probably do more, but that would have to come at the price of my commitment to the institution.
And then…..some student would probably call me incompetent!
Malti
“. . . . even the highest ranks of the University leadership find themselves powerless to deal with incompetents who enjoy political protection. “
Like all sweeping statements this is largely untrue and unfair. Perhaps you have a personal axe to grind, being one of the PhDs you mention who wished but were unable to pursue an academic career. In this case you’d have been more honest and credible had you stated your personal involvement.
Actually Antoine, I know who Malti is. He was able to continue with an academic career at the University and a successful one to boot. If you think that the statement you quoted is a sweeping one, ask yourself one question: why are some incompetents still employed by the University beyond 61 when it would have been opportune to get rid once they reached retiring age?
Antoine,
My statements are neither untrue nor unfair. They are based on hard documented facts which I assure you would stand up in any court of law. However, who will then protect me from the retribution that would undoubtedly follow, as it did in the past when I, and others like me, tried to seek justice? You?
Thank God, many of us no longer have an axe to grind having been able to pursue an academic career on our own merits without any “godfather’s” protection. However, I do take great exception that you question my honesty and credibility without any knowledge of who I am, and consequently of the facts to which I refer. I would have expected better from an academic.
The Malta Youth Press debate on the government-UMASA impasse has been moved to Thursday 8th January at 14:00. The venue is still the KSU Common Room.
Manuel Sinagra
” . . .why are some incompetents still employed by the University beyond 61 when it would have been opportune to get rid once they reached retiring age?”
Because “incompetent” is a subjective term – a matter of opinion – and there is no foolproof impartial way of judging whether a person is competent or not (unless they sit for exams like the students do).
Knowing how much backbiting goes on at the university, I’m not impressed when someone describes a colleague as incompetent (or worse). It may be true or not so, unless I have direct personal knowledge, I tend to disregard such gossip.
Malti
“I do take great exception that you question my honesty and credibility without any knowledge of who I am, and consequently of the facts to which I refer.”
I’m sorry but that is a risk you chose to take when you decided to post anonymously and make generalised accusations against an entire category of people.
I reacted to what you wrote not to who you are and in your political rant there were no “documented facts”, only sweeping statements that put almost the entire academic staff in a bad light.
I can very well sympathise with Malti as I am myself the recipient of such injustice meted out to me in the late nineties and early 2000’s – and in the same as Malti, I have had to obtain my position not only by hard, academic sweat but also by passing all the hurdles thrown out in my way.
On the other hand, at least in the part of the University where I work, I can identify a higher number of competent people as opposed to “incompetent” ones. And though Antoine is right to state that incompetence is subjective, there are some ways and means to measure it in the academic world – number of peer reviewed publications, academic standing of the journals where the publications are published, research activity, number of Ph.D. students, amount of foreign, competitive grants obtained, etc.
Though I believe that the older generation have to make way to the young generation, I am not of the opinion to throw away experience and academic standing – I would just offer these “retired” academics consultative positions.
The other problem that one finds at the University is the fact that whilst some areas thrive on research, others are mainly concerned with teaching. Thus whilst in the research part, the results of the research are a satisfaction on its own that counteracts the relatively low pay, in the teaching part (and especially where most of the lecturers are part-timers – as no one is ready to take full time jobs) – the private profession is more lucrative and thus is given a higher attention. This results in the non-appearance of lecturers, boring, read-through lectures and prolonged correction time.
Unfortunately this can only be corrected through a widespread change in attitudes not only amongst the academics but also amongst our students, as these are tomorrow’s academics. My experience is that most (not all) of our students are happy if you give them the concise information for them to learn parrot like and find it a waste of time that the lecturer pushes them to think out of the box – basically doing the minimum effort but want to gain maximum benefit.
Just a very typical example, I was reading a magazine issued by the student organisation in which they had a vox pop on the new library facilities. I could not believe it but out of the 6 or 7 students that were asked the question, only 2 had even entered the library!
So yes I think that it is about time that some system like those that exist abroad wherein one gets a basic pay that can be augmented by grant money and services provided together with a good IP policy that rewards the “competent” academics should be implemented, if we really mean to raise the University to a centre of excellence.
@ Chriatian Scerri
Are you employed full-time at the University? If not, how many side jobs would you need to sustain your academic standard? What kind of jobs could those be?
[So yes I think that it is about time that some system like those that exist abroad wherein one gets a basic pay that can be augmented by grant money and services provided together with a good IP policy that rewards the “competent” academics should be implemented, if we really mean to raise the University to a centre of excellence.]
With reference to your last paragraph, where can the money (funding) come from? Why should grant money be used to supplement a basic pay? If grant money is exploited to supplement a basic pay, how could the grant money be used for research?
Periklu: A researcher’s remuneration is part of the cost of research. The specifications of a grant may include the payment of a research assistant, for instance.
@ Corinne Vella
I would have expected a better qualified answer from your end.
Periklu: My comment was in direct reply to your last question. It implies that researchers’ remuneration and research costs are two mutually exclusive categories, which they are not.
What’s “a better qualified answer”, anyway?
@ Corinne Vella
I agree that a researcher’s remuneration must be invoiced to the total costs of research. There are however modalities which regulate a researcher’s employment. A full-time (permanent) university (academic) employee, paid from a university’s budget, should not, and cannot, expect to augment his/her basic salary through a (foreign/extra-mural) grant. On the other hand, I agree that a temporary research assistant (in any position) may be paid from grant money (“specifications of a grant”). I was once in a similar position myself. A “better qualified answer” would be an answer which tackles all aspects of research, research priorities, research facilities, research funding and research goal. As far as I am concerned, you may of course help Christian Scerri to answer the questions which I asked him.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=201704§ioncode=26
@ Periklu – Academics around the world have a basic salary for their full-time job but are expected to augment it through funds that they acquire, through competitive grant application.
This system exists in the States, the UK and various other countries. I have used the word ‘expected’ on purpose – they are expected and if they are not successful, more often then not, their contract is not renewed – they are on contract. This fact has now been officially recognised by the EU, so much so that in their FP7 funding programme, full-time (and part-time) academic researchers can be paid above their normal salary, through the research grant, even where in the case of the university, its overheads are calculated on an ‘additional ‘cost model’.
Corinne is obviously right – part of the research cost includes the researchers’ salary – both recruited for the research project as well as full-time academic researchers.
On the other hand, you have also made a number of good points as far as research is concerned. In the past year, the university has succeeded in obtaining (through the writing of competitive grant application) over 50 million euros in funds to improve its research facilities in the areas targeted by the government’s R&D strategy i.e. health and biotech, ICT, alternative energy and environment (so this answers your priorities and facilities question – even though more can be done, and more applications are planned for this year).
Just as a point of information, the funding for structural works in relationship to research facilities is also considered research funding, but I understand that you are referring to the funding for consumables, salaries and meetings. The other question of research funding is a very hot issue and one to which the government and industry are not giving the required attention. Just see the amount budgeted this year for MCST’s RTDI programme.
On the other hand, we have been successful in a identifying and obtaining other sources of funding, such as the European Framework programme as well as the Interreg programme. The 4A programme, 2007-2013 has earmarked 30 million euros for research funding in the fields of health and biotech, environment and tourism. Applications will be accepted only for projects with at least two partners – one from Malta and the other from Sicily. As for the humanities, the competition for funding from the FP7 programme is much less than it is in the sciences and so the degree of success can even be higher.
As for research goals, I can assure you that any scientist worth his/her salt has a research goal on which to base the search for the necessary partners and put in applications.
So though I am convinced that if one tries, one succeeds (and I can mention a large number of success stories at the university). I still believe that government should put its cash where its mouth is and increase its recurrent funding both for the university (say a full e-library facility as well as good incentives to attract post-docs) as well as for its research activities.
I hope that this is “a better qualified answer”.
Periklu
“A full-time (permanent) university (academic) employee, paid from a university’s budget, should not, and cannot, expect to augment his/her basic salary through a (foreign/extra-mural) grant.”
Why ever not? What Christian Scerri was saying is normal in many British universities, among others. The academic gets a basic salary and a sort of ‘commission’ (for want of a better word) for services rendered to industry or some other institution.
No system is perfect, of course, and this particular one poses at least two problems that I can see. First of all, it works mostly for scientists, especially those engaged in applied sciences and technology. I do not think scholars working in the Humanities would have as many opportunities to win contracts and obtain grants from the private sector.
The system also results in researchers concentrating on particular fields of study (where the money is) while ignoring others. You can see this happening in medicine where there is a lot of research to find newer and better remedies for colds while more serious but rarer tropical diseases are hardly studied.
In a way this is already the case with the EU as, all over Europe, research institutes are obliged to work and compete mainly in those sectors for which the Commission allocates funds.
“A “better qualified answer” would be an answer which tackles all aspects of research, research priorities, research facilities, research funding and research goal.”
Are you setting an assignment? (You’d better wait until UMASA lifts its directive.)
@ Christian Scerri
You have my gratitude for providing a qualified answer.
My own personal experience is based on a system, in which “third party” funding is not used to augment the basic salary of full-time (permanent) university staff. “Third party” funding is used for what you call “consumables”, for meetings (and necessary travel) and for extra research staff. A permanent university staff member usually has a “life-contract”, which per se includes research obligations.
You might already have read that I agreed with Corinne Vella that a researcher’s salary be invoiced to research costs but, from the learned way in which you write, I surmise that you also know the administrative parameters affecting contract and salary, especially with respect to income tax issues and the possible role of the T.C.U.
Finally, in your notable answer, I personally miss the source of the cash, which you would wish government to put where government’s mouth is.
Christian, in life, one has to be real. Fact is that Malta is diminutive in size, with limited resources inclusive of EU membership, and hence Malta cannot accomodate legions of academics, who are reluctant to seek new pastures to follow their (vocational) research.
@ Antoine Vella
I have noted, with due attention, your contribution, which, unfortunately, does not really impress me.
@Periklu
Granted that there are different systems in different countries and as Antoine has said none are perfect.
As for the cash, those that know me, are aware that I have always advocating the fact that we have to pay for what we ask for – nothing is free. So yes, if need be, we need to set aside part of our tax money (increase it if need be) so as to be able to compete in the new world economy of science and research. Our only hope to compete with “cheaper” countries is to nurture innovation, research and development. This does nto come cheap, but no investment is cheap.
At the moment, the government is investing heavily in Tertiary students (including their stipends), only for the best to end up poached by foreign Universities (good for them, bad for the country as a whole). I have personal experience with a number of Ph.D. graduates from our lab, that have taken up positions in Canada, US, UK, Netherlands, Germany and Japan. Thus in effect the government is investing in a foreign country’s economy and not ours!
Yes Malta is diminutive but within the scientific community we have considerable respect. Just to give you an example, I have just been in La Coruna Spain where I was one of the main speakers in an International Pharmacogenomics conference, where my presentation on the competitive edge that a small island state like Malta has over larger countries stirred quite an interest. Malta offers unique opportunities (short travel distance, central hospital, large family structures, common important chronic diseases, a population that is ready to take part in research and the relatively low cost of its researchers) that with the RIGHT TYPE of LOBBYING and SUPPORT, can produce an interesting niche area.
Unfortunately both the lobbying and the support are missing – together with the right amount of collaboration between us scientist. Added to this one finds the bureaucratic load of certain government departments are an added burden that is slowly but surely sinking any personal initiatives.
@ Christian Scerri
To begin with, my sincere congratulations for your successful personal endeavours. To conclude, please tell me how Lawrence Gonzi, Paul Borg Oliver, Joseph Love Muscat, Josie Muscat and other so-called politicians can win elections by telling the electorate that taxes have to be increased so that Malta will have a competitive edge in pharmacogenomics.
p.s. What is the Maltese word for pharmacogenomics?
Periklu: “Malta cannot accommodate legions of academics, who are reluctant to seek new pastures to follow their(vocational) research.”
You’re implying that research funded through government, i.e. by money collected through taxation, is only ever useful to provide an income for academic researchers. Research should be seen as an investment. How much should be made available for what kind of research according to which criteria are debatable matters. The principle that research is an investment is not.
[You’re implying that research funded through government, i.e. by money collected through taxation, is only ever useful to provide an income for academic researchers.]
@ Corinne Vella
I beg your pardon for above quoted can only be your unfortunately totally warped interpretation. As your good self remarks in a better sense, research should (indeed) be seen as an investment.
@ Periklu
That is why I have never had any ambitions to enter the world of politics :) My biggest problem is that I was born an idealist and most probably shall die as one!
As for pharmacogenomics in Maltese – taking that the French have translated it to pharmacogénomique, the Germans to Pharmakogenomics and the Italians left it as pharmacogenomics, it might be possible to write as “farmakogenomiks” – though I would shudder to use such a word – so in my case I would rather leave it as the English equivalent. (Basically this is akin to changing certain medical terms from English to Maltese without sounding rude)
Periklu
Farmakoġenomika
Christian Scerri
I don’t know if Italian scientists use “pharmacogenomics” but “farmacogenomica” exists as a word in Italian. It’s not really an English word after all, just a composite Greek one pronounced in English.
http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=319477