Ministry reviewing licenses for private higher education
Education ministry ‘deplores’ Evarist Bartolo for claims on academic fraud
Matthew Vella The Ministry of Education yesterday said it “deplored” the allegations made in the media that Malta’s educational authorities are allowing academic fraud to spread.
The statement, coinciding with another press release by the private school European Institute of Education (EIE), was aimed at Labour MP Evarist Bartolo’s claims that the school was offering sub-standard university degrees.
The ministry also announced it was currently reviewing all licences issued for the private provision of higher education, “with a view to ensuring that quality education is afforded to all.”
The ministry said it was working on draft laws to fully regulate private provision by creating the structures to license, accredit and quality-assure further and higher education.
Referring to Bartolo, the ministry said the shadow education minister was “not fully conversant with the impact of higher education developments in Malta” and that he was undermining this progress “by sowing seeds of doubt in the minds of people on the quality and standards in the provision of higher education programmes.”
Bartolo claims an MBA degree undertaken through the EIE, and offered by the European University – a Swiss private university – was not up to international standards.
The education ministry said it was aware of its obligations to safeguard standards and ensure all qualifications receive adequate recognition and monitoring.
In a parallel statement by EIE director Antonello Capitta, who is also a member of the Nationalist Party’s focus group on higher education, the school said it was ‘trusted’ by institutions such as the University of Leicester, the Institut Universitaire Kurt Bosch, Tbilisi Saero Universiteti Metekhi, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.
“Contrary to what Evarist Bartolo has alleged during the last few weeks, EIE has never ‘taken any students for a ride’. We have always valued our students, so much so that we always go to great lengths to help them by whatever means we feel necessary. EIE joins the Ministry of Education in deploring the attacks and unfounded allegations levelled against it and against higher education in Malta.”
The European University of Geneva, formerly represented by EIE, is at the centre of allegations by Maltese graduates, who studied for a long-distance Masters in Business Administration – paid for through EIE – which degree is not recognised by the Malta Qualifications Council.
EIE has sued MaltaToday for libel, for comments that Evarist Bartolo made in his regular column on the institutions represented by the agency (see page 18).
Checks by MaltaToday with the Swiss and Austrian authorities have confirmed the dubious quality checks on the degrees conferred by certain private educational institutions. The European University is registered in two Swiss cantons, which do not require checks on academic quality. It is a private institution, which is actually licensed – just as trading companies are – to offer its courses by the educational authorities of Holland, Estonia, Malta and Kazakhstan.
But the school’s degrees still elude accreditation standards. Isabella Brunelli, from the Swiss education department’s university institutions unit, told MaltaToday that “according to the federal law on financial aid to universities, no institution with the name ‘European University’ is recognized by the Swiss government.”
Swiss cantons retain autonomy on higher education. However accreditation in Switzerland “operates on a voluntary basis” and “is not compulsory”, Brunelli said.
“While in some cantons no authorisation is needed, in some others it is like the procedure for establishing a trading company and it does not imply a quality audit of the institution… those institutions that successfully carry out accreditation get listed on the Swiss centre of accreditation’s (OAQ) homepage.”
Cappitta yesterday said students could contact the Malta Qualifications Recognition and Information Centre (MQRIC) to verify if the universities EIE represented are recognised or not.
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