The impasse between MCAST's administration and MUT is worrying many students and parents. Its timing is certainly not the right one for the students. This is after all their exam time.

This situation did not just appear. It is a progression of a relationship between lecturers and administration which may have already started to turn sour some time ago. The collective agreement expired in December 2016 and was agreed to at a time when the College provided vocational education till graduate level and was run under a particular structure.

In June 2015, 18 months before its expiration, the administration decided that MCAST will be given more a vocational university character offering also programmes at Masters level. With the unveiling of the new 'corporate image' came the restructuring of the College.

Tasks for lecturers, especially those with administrative and coordinating responsibilities changed. People were promoted horizontally or vertically according to the management's needs to implement this restructure. There were indications that all of this was imposed rather than adopted through consensus with all the stakeholders and a gossip of mismatch between lecturers' expectations of respect and recognition as professionals and administration's impositions was developing.

Negotiations started in December 2016, and although these may have slowed when MUT was going through its own electoral process, regular meetings took place again from July 2017.  

Meanwhile, the contract of the principal and CEO Stephen Cachia came to a close in October 2017 and he decided not to seek renewal informing the college's lecturers of this by email on 6 December 2017.

During this time, he was appointed by Minister Evarist Bartolo to be a member of the senate of the University of Malta and is said to be set to be appointed by the same Minister as Director General for lifelong learning. This was a time when the proposed financials by MCAST were rejected by MUT.

This is not the first threat of industrial action. MUT had already threatened industrial action in November 2017 when it declared a trade dispute but had lifted that action with the intention to seek reconciliation. Clearly MUT's calling again for industrial action shows that at least for MUT discussions were not progressing in a satisfactory manner.

While trade disputes may be thorny surely this one taking place within the sector of education should attract some particular attention. It raises questions on the relationship that lecturers have with the college's administration and now that the college has sued its own lecturers it also raises eyebrows on how the antagonism these proceedings may create can be diffused. Such antagonism does not augur well for two very important interests:  the national interest of providing the highest standard of vocational education, and the national interest of the welfare of students and lecturers.

Taking proceedings to stop your own lecturers from striking does not seem to me to be conducive to either of these interests. Taking action that stops the relationship between lecturer and student, rather than between lecturer and administration, also does not seem to me to be conducive to either of these interests.

So will this leave vocational education, lecturers and students at a status quo - an antagonized highly charged environment?

The crux of the dispute is not whether MUT is right to call for industrial action nor whether the type of industrial action chosen by MUT could have been better directed at the administration, nor even what the administration's decision to resort to court says about that administration. The crucial factor is that we remain with our national vocational education college left in this impasse.

It is only for this reason, that I urge everyone involved to realise that this is about taking the opportunity to send out the message that MCAST lecturers are to be recognized as lecturers of vocational education with duties of teaching even up to postgrad level, who deserve not just fair remuneration but also conditions of work such as resources that are reflective of their responsibilities. Providing this recognition to lecturers is in the best interest of students.

But this is also an opportunity for MCAST's administration to make sure that the physical change of the corporate logo is now made complete with the effective change of the corporate image by providing its lecturers and students with the official recognition of the level of studies that MCAST provides.

Therese Comodini Cachia is PN spokesperson for education