I would like to comment on Gordon Cordina’s address to the Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee last week (TMIS, 14 May).

Not only is it a bad idea to shift Lm8 million spent yearly on stipends to Research & Development, but there is a strong case that it is only by spending this money specifically on student support that the three per cent of GDP target will actually be reached. A very brief look at Maltese R&D vis-à-vis education would lead one to reason along these lines:

• Malta has a very low percentage of students attending university –The percentage of the total population attending Higher Education programmes is one of the lowest in Europe. Even Thailand’s numbers are better than ours. Since according to KSU’s estimates the cost of living life has risen by 55 per cent in the last five years for university students, one must ask whether using stipend money for research would not in fact decrease the number of students entering Higher Education, and hence research activities

• Science & Technology graduates are a rare species – Although Malta has registered significant improvements in the past years, the number of annual Science & Technology course graduates is still miserly. In its reform of the student support system, the government introduced measures to address the problem. The most effective tool identified was in fact stipends, which were consequently increased for S&T students.

• Stipends are not a burden on the economy – The statement that education and stipends are a cost for the taxpayer is a bit of a myth. Statistics show clearly that university graduates consistently fall into higher tax brackets than non-graduates. When the lifetime tax contribution of a person who went to university is compared with that of someone who didn’t, the government makes a very healthy profit, even after decreasing the cost of education and stipends

• R&D is a profitable business – While it is understandable that the government may be having some problems finding the cash to increase research and development activities, it might be useful to remember why the three per cent GDP target was introduced in the first place: because R&D brings growth, prosperity and jobs. It needs to be viewed as an investment, which in the long term will bring profit and not as a cost that will require cuts in other areas

• Malta’s efforts to reach the three per cent target are weak – We need to increase research funding enormously to reach the target. The National Reform Programme states that we currently spend 0.016 per cent of GDP on research, or 200 times below the Lisbon targets, and the only proposals stated in the same document to rectify the situation are modest tax breaks. If one really wants to increase Research & Development, the least one would expect government to do is draw up an ambitious reform agenda prioritising its area, rather than taking such a laissez faire attitude.

The only way to prioritise research, innovation and research in Malta is by prioritising education. This involves far more than just modernising labs, and building schools, however important these are. It means developing a student-centric approach that develops the only resource this country has: our people and our students. Student support is not a regressive tax, a remnant of a financial support system of bygone ages. It is a modern, progressive system, which, in a very similar way to R&D, invests in innovation and development by ensuring that students spend their time and energy doing what they do best if allowed to do so – acquiring the knowledge and skills that will take us into a prosperous future.

Anthony F. Camilleri

Mr Camilleri currently works as an expert in Higher Education financing and student support in the Committee on the Commodification of Education for the National Unions of Students in Europe, an organisation that represents 11 million students throughout Europe.