Over 3,800 hours of lectures lost at Mcast

Hundreds of students from the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology lost 3,878 hours of lectures since the opening of the scholastic year, opposition education spokesman Evarist Bartolo said.

He said the situation was brought about by a shortage of teachers and poor administration.

"Unfortunately, the students worst affected were those doing the foundation courses, the ones that need the most attention," he said when contacted to explain.

The information about the number of lost hours at Mcast was given by Education Minister Dolores Cristina in response to a parliamentary question by Mr Bartolo.

While most of the courses have a missed-hour rate of under 50, nine courses in particular have much higher rates. Since the beginning of the academic year, those following the maths foundation course missed 572 hours and those following the English foundation course missed 192.

Mr Bartolo said this demonstrated a serious lack of planning by the authorities and the situation was leading many students to give up or drop out.

The government downplayed the comments, saying the college administration did not have control over absenteeism by lecturers.

"During the academic year, a number of lecturers left the college or had to miss lectures for various reasons. Some had to take maternity or parental leave, rights allowed by law. Others fell sick and could not attend class or left for better job opportunities in Malta and abroad," the government said.

A lecturer is not an object you can just buy whenever you need, it added. "Even when you find capable people who are ready to fill in the vacancies, according to law these have to give notice to their current employers, which might take time."