Opening Pandora's box

The exorbitant amount of money being spent on student stipends cannot be ignored any longer, especially when certain science-based departments have been instructed not to place any more orders before the exact 2005 allocation of budget to the various departments is determined. This shows that the University is facing another year with a meagre budget for recurrent expenditure. Science-based departments will suffer most.

Rev. Dr Alfred Darmanin, a psychologist and a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University, has perhaps opened Pandora's box when, writing in The Sunday Times last week, he offered a different view when questioning the validity of paying students a stipend other than the often quoted present problem of finding ways for properly financing tertiary education.

Dr Darmanin concludes that (1) the unconditional giving of stipends to all students should be eliminated, and (2) partial or full scholarships be offered to students in accordance with their financial needs.

The reasons given for these conclusions are grave indeed if we are to take them seriously. When evaluating such serious matters one has to establish the advantages and the disadvantages of the present student stipend system. The next question to be considered is: Do the disadvantages of our stipend system outweigh the advantages?

Dr Darmanin has handled the subject in a few hundred words. It should certainly take more than that to make a weighted judgment. Some of the supposed facts are also accepted without much questioning. For example, it is assumed that many students join the University because of the availability of the stipends. Are there any other possible ways to attract more students to the University other than the stipends? Does it make sense to attract students in large numbers to courses which lead to few openings?

The Prime Minister, in a recent interview on Radio 101, mentioned that investors were urging him to see to it that the University educates more graduates in the sciences, specifically mentioning engineering. Is the stipend system attracting more engineering students? Or to put it in a better way: why are students joining the education and law faculties in excessive numbers when there are more openings for students joining the sciences?

Is it because to obtain the required entry grades in the A-level sciences one needs to use a greater effort and perhaps also get that additional help in the form of private tuition? Has private tuition in Malta for A-level in the sciences proved to be not only very popular and attractive to parents and students alike but also a very effective and productive way of passing science A-levels?

Then one may ask: is it possible that subsidising private tuition by the government may be a better way to attract science students to the University than providing students with a stipend, for example in the form of tax deduction to parents making this expense? This may be anathema to certain educationalists. However, the fact that a few University lecturers offer to give private tuition to A-level science students, leads one to conclude that these lecturers are convinced that these students really need that extra help to obtain the required grades.

Many students following science courses, especially Medicine and Engineering, have undergone private tuition in addition to the more formal education while attending sixth form. If one plans to have more students in engineering and the sciences, why not subsidise these areas? In this way one will avoid the dangers and adverse effects of giving money to students just for attending University or sixth form. One would also be helping students who need that extra help to be able to join a science, medical or engineering course.

Examining the performance of some of the students joining the science-based courses, there is a clear need to upgrade the standards of these students at entry level especially in the area of mathematics. As far as the attitude of students towards society, work, lecturers, parents and themselves, one must not exaggerate the negative side. Students at the University, even though they are over 18, still need a lot of guidance.

Some of them, and these are more conspicuous than others, are very concerned on how to make money. Students obtained the idea that they ought to be given everything for free. This is encouraged by the politicians, as witnessed recently when the University was stopped from asking students to pay a nominal graduation fee. However, a significant number of students spend their stipend wisely. They all need guidance and sometimes a bit of some cautious and nicely delivered advice.

Not all agree that the stipend system, as it is today, is to be abolished as a matter of principle. Even if Dr Darmanin is wron in his assumptions and he does not prove his theory that the present stipend system does more harm than good, it may be worth considering whether the stipend money could be better spent.

One way that may be suggested of how to spend the stipend money more wisely is in financing ways that encourage and facilitate the means by which students who are inclined to follow science-based courses (especially engineering) could do so without lowering the standards required to join these courses. Even if the psychological effects of the stipend system were to be positive, one should always spend the nation's money in the wisest way possible.

Dr Darmanin has perhaps put another nail in the coffin of the present stipends system. Yet, the significant strength of the students' pressure (over 10,000 students) on the politicians of all three political parties cannot be ignored.

One final point: Should Fr Darmanin's assertions on the students' negative attitudes be real and not exaggerated (whether attributed to the stipend system or not) then the up-and-coming generation of university graduates is in a pitiful state indeed. One hopes that Fr Darmanin, a distinguished psychologist, was exaggerating his comments in order to express his views more emphatically through the use of well known 'psychological' techniques.