Amid the controversy surrounding the relaxation of entry requirements into Junior College, the University of Malta’s rector Alfred J. Vella has said that there was also a relaxation in entry requirements for the University of Malta.

Speaking in an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Vella said that the relaxation was trialled unexpectedly during the Covid-19 pandemic and kept on when it was seen that those students who entered the University on a probational level actually, by and large, made it to the second year of their studies.

Vella was initially asked about an area which commanded controversy in recent weeks – the reduction of the requirements needed to enter Junior College.

From needing to have English, Maths and Maltese along with three other subjects at a SEC level, one now needs only one of those three core subjects along with five other subjects in total in order to enter the College. Those students will still need to acquire all three core subjects if they are to be admitted to University.

“Why did we do it? The Junior College Board argued that there are other sixth forms which do not have this restriction for students to enter, so why should we have it?” Vella explained.

He said that historically this is how Junior College used to operate, with students entering provisionally.

Vella said that the number of students entering Junior College provisionally now is negligible: around 70 who did not pass mathematics and a smaller number who struggled with the languages.

He said that the issue might have become so because some teachers thought that they would have to teach the O level subjects, but he noted that this will not be the case because casual tutors will be brought in for the students who want them.

Vella stated that there was another reform, however, which was arguably more significant and which was not caught by anyone.

Indeed, from the scholastic year which has just commenced, the admission requirements to get into University were relaxed.

In previous years, to enter the University one needed to have amassed a total of 44 points from the Advanced and Intermediate level examinations one sits for, besides also having specific course requirements (such as needing your preferred subject at a C grade to enter into a Bachelor of Arts course) which must be met.

From this year, Vella explained, that number of required points has been brought down to 38 and one can still enter a course with a D grade rather than a C grade in cases where a special course requirement is needed.

Vella explained that the idea for the decision came because of an “unplanned experiment” throughout the Covid pandemic where the entry requirement was down at 36 points rather than 44.

The rector said that the administration saw that 75 to 80% of the students who were admitted to the University with that amount of points still made it into the second year of their studies, which led to him proposing to the Senate to maintain a lower entry requirement level because there may be valid people being kept out of University.

The Senate agreed with this reasoning on condition that the situation is reviewed in three years so that it can be ascertained whether these students made it to their graduation or not.

These students are still probational and only become regular students if they get into the second year of their studies.

Asked whether the argument could be made that in lowering the admission criteria then one is lowering the standards of the University, Vella agreed that such an argument could be made and that one will have to see what the graduation rate of these students will be in order to determine whether the reform is a success or not.

He pointed out, though, that the number of students who entered University as probational students is very low: only around 90 of the over 3,400 students who started their studies at the University this year entered on this basis.

 

Budget cut will give us the opportunity to work more efficiently, rector says

A major subject of controversy over the past weeks has been a €1.1m cut in the University of Malta’s budget.

Asked what effect this will have on the University’s operations, Vella said that when considering that the University’s annual budget is of €120m, the cut is “really small”.

“I don’t want to speak on behalf of the government, but to me it was an important symbolic act.  I’m not saying that I enjoyed it, because I would rather they increased the budget rather than reduced it, but I always had a concern that we can do some things more conservatively,” he explained.

He said that this budget cut could be exploited in order to improve the University’s efficiency.

“Was there the need for it? No. We could have improved our efficiency and become more conservative [without the budget cut] but reigning in all of the people who I need in order to run this complicated place as I would like is not easy,” he said.

“This has galvanised minds a bit.  I think it won’t hold us back in any way operationally,” he added.

Vella is also keen to point out statements to the end that the budget cut will mean that the University will stop its research work, stating that these are totally false.

“The amount which the government is contributing towards the University’s research will, as far as I can understand, remain untouched.  Considering that the bulk of money on research is coming from the European Union, that’s another misconception which needs to be cleared up,” he said.

Asked whether it’s the right message for any administration to be sending by cutting the budget from University rather than elsewhere, Vella argued that that is the price which any administrator pays when money is reduced from anywhere: “no budget cut is going to find supporters, but living beyond one’s means is irresponsible”.

He said that the most negative thing on the matter was that it ended up being a political ball, but the most positive thing for him is that while many people generally express angst against the University, this brought a lot of people together in support of them, which he described as “heartwarming”.

 

Rector says he was ‘horrified’ at safety aspect of balloon popping stunt

The University was thrown into a bad light this week owing to a stunt carried out by the company FreeHour on the Campus Hub premises during Freshers’ Week, wherein a balloon with €1,000 in €5 notes in it was popped, with students present able to catch and keep as much as they could.

“I was a bit revulsed when I saw the pictures carried in the media,” Vella admitted when he is asked for his reaction when seeing the stunt.

The rector explained particularly that he was “horrified” about the safety aspect of the event, saying that as a forensic expert, who was called in to help with investigations relating to crushes in confined spaces, he was deeply worried by those pictures.

Vella said that he also objected to the stunt on moral grounds, noting that there was no educational value – even if the stunt’s intention was to pull people towards a commercial product and a commercial space.

“I don’t like seeing people attracted to certain practices,” Vella says, as he criticises, for instance, gambling – something seen widely across Freshers’ Week as many companies attending the fair run giveaway and competitions for lucrative prizes in a bid to gain attention from students.

“Should the University be educating in order to support this industry? I have a strong personal dilemma on this, but if you don’t educate then perhaps the problem can be worse because those dealing with the area wouldn’t see anything other than profits. This way, maybe you can put in an idea of ethics and of caring for others as well,” he said.

Turning back to the balloon stunt, which was held on Campus Hub, Vella clarifies that while the land on which Campus Hub is built belongs to the University of Malta and is handed out to the operators – Vassallo Group – on a concession basis, the project is a commercial one.

Vella notes how the concessionaire built buildings which the University is grateful for – even if the project is a bit big for his liking – which will cater for 1,000 and a number of facilities including some with an educational scope and others of a more commercial scope which will ultimately be for the benefit of the students and of the staff working at the University as well.

“We cannot stay censoring what [the concessionaire] does there – and this activity was organised by a third party – because it’s ultimately a business.  The land is ours but we have to allow them to function,” Vella said.

 

‘Something isn’t working in the engine rooms below’

A recent survey found that many youths feel like the current educational system does not prepare them for life outside of the classroom. 

Asked about this, Vella says that it depends on how they understand what preparing them for life means: whether it’s to be ready to work or to be an upstanding citizen.

From the work perspective, Vella said that the University’s courses do prepare people for their respective professions, particularly as a number of them get a significant amount of time in a work setting.

Other courses, he said, give students transferable skills, such as critical, analytical and communicative skills, which are important for any job market: “There is no course which isn’t useful.  Formation at University level is there to give you good preparation for your life and I’m convinced that a stay at this institution is most useful.”

However, he pointed out, certain skills need to be learnt by doing, and that one cannot expect that the University prepares a person for absolutely everything.

A good academic education though, he continued, will help people adapt to the workplace and become more proficient far quicker.

Turning to the education at a grander scale, Vella however makes an important statement: “No, I don’t think that we are doing things well.  Here [at University], we have an education completion rate of an average of 90%. At secondary level, they lose two-thirds of their students.  Something isn’t working down in the engine rooms below.”

Asked why he thinks that is the case, Vella replies: “I like to say that our children are used to listening too much. They go to Museum and they have to listen. They go to Church and they have to listen. Then they come to school and they have to listen as well,” he said.

There isn’t enough emphasis, he said, on children actually making their voices heard.

“Then, not everyone who is in the profession, I’m sorry to say, is there for the right reasons,” he added, referring to the education profession.

“We have a lot of dedicated teachers, but unfortunately I think their work is hampered by a small minority who have a bigger voice,” Vella said, not willing to elaborate further.

On this point, Vella is asked about another critique levelled at the current educational system:  that it is too memory-based and that there is too much emphasis on examinations.

In this instance, Vella said that examinations are “a necessary evil” and that having a way of assessment gives the students themselves peace of mind that they are achieving success.

“To say that students don’t need to be evaluated or that we should base ourselves on self-assessment… I don’t think that will work,” he said.

He said that there are different ways in which examinations can be done and noted that the University itself allows students four chances to sit for examinations when they deem fit, but ultimately they still need to be done.