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MCESD committee proposes partial repayment of stipend after graduation
In 1997, Labour announced a series of cost-cutting measures and taxes designed to rein in public expenditure and the spiralling debt inherited from the Nationalist administration a year earlier.
On that fateful Budget evening in 1997, hundreds of University and post-secondary students gathered outside the House of Parliament, halted by the barricades at Palace Square, to protest the reduction of the student stipend to a flat Lm50 per month, from what used to be a yearly, incremental stipend. For weeks afterwards, sporadic groups of Junior College students staged impromptu strikes and demonstrations, even locking the school gates shut with padlocks and chains.
Today, it would seem that the chickens are finally coming home to roost. Six years after regaining the student vote on the promise it would revert University stipends back to their pre-1997 level, the Nationalist Government looks prepared to take up Labour’s first bold steps in reining in the public outlay, and stipends are once again liable for ‘rationalisation,’- corporate euphemism for cutback.
A part repayment of the stipend and a differentiation of payable stipends according to the courses best suited to the “country’s economic needs,” are amongst the proposals drawn up by the MCESD’s National Competitiveness Working Committee. Chaired by economist Gordon Cordina, the Committee has laid down recommendations for serious reform in the financing of education in Malta in a bid for greater efficiency and accountability which would lead up to a self-financing system.
Expressing concern at the cost of education in Malta and the output of graduates with “potentially doubtful employability,” the Working Committee has stated that the stipends system may not be providing “the right incentives to study.” Taking inspiration from the Dutch model, where students aged 18 and over receive a basic state grant which they may supplement with a loan, or a means-tested supplementary grant for their undergraduate studies, the plans hark back to Labour’s 1997 measures.
At present, Maltese students receive a stipend of between Lm40 to Lm60 every month, with a total grant of Lm600 in the first year for the purchase of books and other educational equipment, and Lm200 thereafter for each year of university.
The committee’s proposals include having a portion of the stipend repaid by the graduate following commencement of work, subject to a moratorium based on study performance and income availability. The proposals have been forwarded to the State Higher Education Funding Working Group, which are also examining the financial situation of state post-secondary and tertiary institutions.
Student organisations are following the developments in the discussions on stipends closely.
Oh no you won’t
The University students’ body - the Kunsill Studenti Universitarji - has already communicated the message that it will not “accept any programme of reform intended at reducing the subsidies given to students,” although this position does not preclude the KSU from “supporting any rationalisation which will render the current system sustainable in the long term.” The KSU has stressed that the current stipend should be retained.
The KSU, in fact, believes that providing all students with a uniform monetary grant, which amounts to Lm600 at the beginning of the first year and Lm200 for every other year, introduces several inequities for students in ‘expensive’ courses, especially for those hailing from a lower socio-economic group. A KSU survey found that abuse of the smart card that governs the grant scheme, was “relatively common”.
David Agius, President of the Studenti Demokristjani Maltin at the University of Malta, has outlined the organisation’s opposition to “any proposal where a loan system is involved.”
“SDM recalls its major role in the 1997 student protests against the introduction of such an unfair system. SDM totally deplores any proposal where a student is burdened with the repayment of these loans after completing a course. SDM does not believe that education should be viewed through a utilitarian point of view. A student may study without any intention of translating his or her studies into work, and should never be obliged to do so in order to pay what has been loaned,” Agius said.
The organisation also opposes means testing: “Parents’ financial situation should not impinge on the student’s right to be aided financially by the State. The social grant should be equal to all students, however students facing financial difficulties may apply for a special grant.”
Social democrat University organisation PULSE is also ready to oppose any cuts or measures which will “adversely affect” post-secondary and University stipends.
According to President Chris Bonett, today’s financial problems have nothing to with the heightened student influx, pointing a finger towards the abuse of university funds and administrative inefficiency. “We are absolutely gutted that in all cases of administrative inefficiency and incompetence it is always the powerless that suffer the first and biggest blow. In this case it is the students. This is intolerable if we want to find real practical solutions to problems.
“What leaves us baffled is not the fact that the Government is reviewing the stipend scheme, but the fact that this government has suddenly stated that the stipend scheme is not sustainable anymore. The same people that fought a ‘crusade’ to ‘save’ stipends are now, in the space of just six years, stating the contrary… If the Government comes up with a decision to decrease the stipend in any way, we are ready to take our battle to save stipends all the way.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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