Recent press reports citing that the University of Malta is going into debt are not surprising. The University of Malta is one of the worst performing national universities in the world. This is not an opinion, but a fact as presented by the annual research and university surveys done internationally that University of Malta even uses to brag about its position. The problem is that those bragging about the rankings of the University of Malta are stupidly comparing the University of Malta with local and municipal universities of third-world countries in the countryside. As a national university, the University of Malta is ranked as one of the worst in the world.
This is a total disgrace that has been allowed to fester for years on end due to the very strong sense of entitlement of a cohort of academics who have taken over the University and are resisting any form of change. The University of Malta is fully government funded and also government controlled – its top officials are chosen and appointed by the government. There is of course no academic meritocracy at the University as posts and vacancies are filled according to political exigencies.
The research produced by the University is minimal and marginally zero. The production of books, papers and research is extremely low. Many UOM academics don’t even work full-time at the University: they have full-time salaries at the University all the while they engage full-time in their private practice. This level of grift and corruption at the University of Malta is even unprecedented in the most dictatorial countries where universities, despite being also fully-government controlled, at least oblige their academics to produce research and to actually work.
There’s absolutely no accountability at the University and Faculty Deans have the excessive power to engage in nepotism and corruption without any checks and balances. Most of the academics are not interested to conduct academic research, and they are mostly interested to further their careers with extra-curricular activates: like Andrew Azzopardi who is launching a show on Campus FM (completely funded by the tax-payer).
The University of Malta is the most corrupt public and government-owned entity. The government should not entertain the demands of the petty and pseudo-academics who are getting a free ride on society. The only solution for the University of Malta is for it to be sold to a foreign corporation that would run the university with KPIs, standards and productivity levels that include profitability and the production of value as variables – only this route will bring honest meritocracy at the University of Malta.
Anything else would be feeding a corrupt machine that is giving back the absolute minimum to society apart from giving little to no research and marginally 0 value if you exclude the degrees (many of them also worthless).
Ask yourself this question. If these academics are so intelligent and productive, why are they allowing their institution to accumulate debt and why aren’t they smart and intelligent enough to rake in a decent amount of revenue just to break-even? The answer is because they aren’t and the University of Malta is run by entitled, incompetent and morally corrupt individuals who want to use the academic institution for their personal interests. It’s really not that hard to break-even when you are the national university and most of your expenses are subsidised by the government. Maybe an actual academic could explain this to them.
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