The National Commission for Higher Education (NCHE) will not put spokes in the wheels of government policy, Sandro Spiteri, the head of the NCHE’s quality assurance unit said today during a press conference about the American University of Malta application.

Qualifying the statement, Mr Spiteri said the policy will be implemented within the framework of the law when processing the AUM’s application.

Mr Spiteri said that as civil servants members of the Commission have to be sensitive to government policy, as a government always wants things done “by yesterday,” as was the case under previous administrations.

Asked by The Malta Independent if there is any political pressure on the Commission over the AUM's application, the Mr Spiteri said there is always pressure to get things done, but not for a particular results to be delivered.

There are ways to do things done faster, such as asking staff to work overtime, he said.

He said the Commission’s ultimate interest is to improve the sector as a whole.

The Commission has never rejected a university application, nor has it ever said yes until it was “comfortable” with the application.

Commission Chairman Martin Scicluna said it was “pure coincidence” that a new legal notice governing the criteria for university applications was published just days after the AUM investment was announced.

He said the new Commission did not need to invoke the new “national interest” clause for the AUM’s application.

Mr Scicluna said it is completely incorrect to state that standards of accreditations have been reduced in any shape or form to accommodate AUM, or any other institution that may apply.

“This legal notice has been in discussion for the past few months and was not introduced in order to favour any particular application for university status. It is the policy to attract universities to Malta and rules had to be aligned to ensure the policy was successfully implemented without undermining standards,” Mr Scicluna explained.