GUEST POST/The Jordanian University of Criminally Stupid Malta

Promoting the idea that what the children of Cottonera need is a university in their neighbourhood, rather than the O-levels and A-levels to get in to the real University of Malta

By H. P. Baxxter

Right then. I’ve bloody had enough.

The Prime Minister and his Tweeting lapdog, Edward Zammit Lewis, are both gushing with excitement at a fantastic new investment in education for the #South.

What bloody South, for God’s sake? And what education?

There are so many layers of stupidity in this story that I don’t quite know where to start.

So let me start with a map. You all have one, somewhere. And if you don’t, that’s what Google Maps is for. You should jolly well use it.

I went and checked. Cottonera, the new ‘hub’ for the new ‘university’, is at a jaw-dropping distance of three kilometres from the University of Malta at Tal-Qroqq. My God, that’s almost the Antipodes.

No wonder the South is so under-developed and full of malnourished, illiterate children crying out for a (fee-paying) university. Poor Southerners, ignored by UNICEF.

No wonder they cheered and applauded Joseph Muscat this morning as he descended from the Mount to visit Cottonera.

South, my arse. There is no South. Just as there is no North on a microscopically tiny island that’s all of 27 kilometres from Cirkewwa to the tip of the breakwater at Birzebbuga.

Now for the fabled investment in education and living standards. Edward Zammit Lewis, who defies description with the absurdity of his statements, reached new heights of Twitter idiocy yesterday.

Here it is, verbatim: “The American University of Malta campus to be split in Cospicua&Marsascala#investment for new job opportunities economic growth in the south”.

WHAT. BLOODY. JOB. OPPORTUNITIES?

Have we all gone moronic? Have the journalists gouged out their own brains with an ice-pick?

How is this supposed to work? What jobs? This new ‘campus’ will be a medium-sized building housing a few rooms, with some chairs and a whiteboard, plus some offices. I see job opportunities for cleaners, a handyman or two, and maybe a couple of drivers, plus someone to run the (halal) tuck-shop.

What kind of lies are the Prime Minister and his ridiculous BFF trying to push here? That housing-estate kids from Cottonera will suddenly be headhunted as lecturers? That they will exchange their ghetto rapper caps and vests for gowns and mortarboards?

Creating jobs for ‘the people of the South’ is against the law, anyway. When there are jobs to be filled, employers are not allowed to discriminate against applicants from The North. They are not permitted to add a little warning to the Situations Vacant ads that non-Cottonera residents need not apply.

Kill me now, please, because the stupidity in this ruddy country is just too much. I swear, one day Malta will disappear up its own arse.

Where are the real dons from the real university? Where is the University of Malta itself? Why is no one pointing out the lies?

Call them errors if “lies” offends your sensitivity. This is as bad as homunculi and a flat Earth. It’s that damned absurd.

Who will lecture at this so-called university? The usual clique, as likely as not. I bet some columnist-academics are salivating at the thought of those juicy salaries, to add to their already juicy salaries as they enjoy life in The North.

Third absurdity, out of a list as long as my arm: the ‘education’ angle. Throw in a real fact, says Edward de Bono, past master of lateral thinking and backroom adviser to this government. So à propos of nothing, the Prime Minister tells us that fewer than 1% of university graduates are from Cottonera.

For a start: duh! Most of the 18-25 age bracket is to be found outside Cottonera, so that’s a statistical tautology. Secondly, you need O-levels and A-levels to get in to university, so it’s pointless plonking a (fee-paying, extremely expensive) diploma mill on the doorstep of people who haven’t the qualifications to get in. If they had the qualifications to get into university, they’d be at the one in Tal-Qroqq. So what Muscat and his Education Minister really need to do is tackle the problematic matter of primary and secondary schooling for the children who live in that area.

The Jordanian haxxej‘s (a word he will not need to have translated) university will not somehow raise the percentage of graduates from Cottonera. That is nonsense reasoning. It can’t – for reasons to do with fees, language of instruction (English) and entry requirements. Where do I start with these people?

Where does Joseph Muscat want the Maltese kids of Cottonera to graduate from? The University of Malta or the fee-paying Diploma Mill of Baksheesh?

If it’s the former, then the presence in The South of the latter makes not one jot of difference. If it’s the latter, then he’s declaring that his education policies have failed and those Cottonera kids don’t have even the little it takes to get a place at the University of Malta and get out the other end.

The only university in the Maltese government’s policy arsenal is the University of Malta, which it funds. Not any other university. Not the Jordanian building contractor’s fake university of fake America in Malta.

Line them up and shoot them. Please. This is criminal.