Students at the University of Malta have begun receiving their results for their January exams after UMASA directives were lifted on Thursday, The Malta Independent can confirm.
In late January, the University of Malta Academic Staff Association (UMASA) called for its members to accelerate industrial action as discussions for a new collective agreement looked to have stalled after months of negotiations.
This resulted in directives whereby UM academic staff were instructed to correct and grade all exams and dissertations but withhold marks from students. By this point, academic staff were already boycotting "any administrative or management meetings, in person or online". This industrial action was put in place in November 2025.
The decision for exam and dissertation marks to be withheld was taken in the middle of the University of Malta's Semester 1 examination period.
UMASA told academic staff that it had decided to increase its industrial action in this dispute after it had "not yet received an offer that sufficiently approached [its] demands," despite holding several meetings with the University of Malta, government officials, and the Ministry for Education.
Student group SDM (Studenti Demokristjani Maltin) - whose representatives run the University's student council (KSU) - announced last night, at almost 11pm, that the UMASA directives have now been lifted.
KSU had previously expressed its regret that students may be adversely affected by these directives, especially through the withholding of examination and dissertation marks. This prompted KSU to declare, on 30 January 2026, that it would consider taking legal action if no solution was found within seven weeks to resolve this issue stemming from the industrial dispute between the University of Malta, its academic staff, and the Ministry for Education over an updated collective agreement.
KSU had at the time reasoned to give "a very reasonable 7-week grace period" since seven weeks is approximately the length of time that students usually wait to receive their final marks for the semester.
In a statement on social media on Friday, the KSU announced the end of the Industrial Dispute and the suspension of Union Directives to withhold student marks.
"This result, is one we have not only hoped for, but also worked tirelessly for. This included meetings and emails advocating for urgent cases to be given exemptions, many hours spent preparing for all eventualities and constant efforts to ensure that the student was never forgotten throughout. Some may think that KSU should have acted with more overt force quicker, but should such action backfired then students would completely been excluded from the conversation and the dispute prolonged further. It would have also possibly compromised our ability to help dozens of urgent cases, something which was only possible due to goodwill," the KSU said.
"At the end of the day, we are overjoyed that students will be receiving their marks within a reasonable period of time since their exams. Going forward we advocate for this episode never to be repeated, and for a collaborative approach to be taken in the future. We remain, as always, committed to advocating for the student in the most responsible way possible," the KSU said.
It was previously reported by Times of Malta that the academics' union was pushing for full professors to begin receiving an annual salary of €130,000, plus an additional €5,000 work allowance. Under the existing collective agreement, full professors are on a yearly pay packet of €85,000 and are entitled to work beyond the retirement age of 65 years old.
UMASA had reportedly lowered its initially requested professors' pay down to €124,000 plus the €5,000 work allowance. It is currently unknown how these negotiations have progressed since these developments were made public, now that UMASA's directives have been lifted.
This context comes in a time where the University of Malta is facing financial hardship. Earlier this week, the University of Malta reported an €11 million deficit for the year 2023.