Rector defends University from criticism about its finances

Updated 8.25pm

The University of Malta will register a small surplus in 2025, Rector Alfred Vella has predicted as he defended the academic institution from criticism about its finances.

Prof. Vella said the University had run a surplus in 2021 and implied subsequent years of deficits were primarily the government's doing: it had agreed to increased salaries for University workers but then failed to provide the funding to cover those costs, he said. 

The rector was being interviewed by Andrew Azzopardi, himself a University professor, on Campus FM.

Times of Malta revealed last week that the University registered an €11 million deficit in 2023, with auditors flagging a material uncertainty in the university’s ability to remain afloat.

The University of Malta is essentially a state-owned university but operates as an autonomous body rather than a standard government department.

Audited accounts show that the University registered a €2.3 million surplus in 2021, which then fell to a €2.8 million deficit in 2022 and €11 million deficit in 2023. Accounts for 2024 are not available.

No government money

Prof. Vella attributed the dramatic dip into the red to collective agreements signed by the government, saying “there was a reluctance to put in the money to finance these salaries.”

“I think the government didn’t like the accumulated surplus,” he said. “It’s how government works, they want entities to spend all the money budgeted.”

Audited accounts show that the government actually cut its allocation to the university from €90.7 million in 2022 to €86.7 million one year later, even as university salary expenditure rose by €4.4 million that year.  

Focus on research

Prof. Vella has been the University rector for almost 10 years and has said he intends to make way for a new rector once his second term expires later this year.

During his tenure, the university has dramatically increased spending on research, with spending rising from roughly €4.5 million annually in 2016 to €18 million now, “with another €30 million or €40 million in EU funding”

That focus has also seen the University build up an “army” of roughly 400 research support officers working on EU-funded research projects, he said.

Irritation at media coverage

Prof. Vella expressed irritation at the media’s lack of focus on those efforts.

“The media doesn’t say we’ve tripled the number of PhD candidates, increased research, have record numbers of international students or risen up the rankings from 1,500 to 700,” he said. “But when my friend Clyde says “pull up your socks,” it’s a scandal.”

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana had made headlines in October 2024 when, in a public interview  with Times of Malta editor-in-chief Herman Grech, he said the University ‘should pull up their socks and roll up their sleeves and generate income.’

The rector said he was confident an industrial dispute with academic staff would soon be definitively resolved through a deal signed with academics’ union UMASA, saying he hoped the government would then “put their money where their mouth is” to bankroll whatever salary increases it approved.

MCAST 'should have four times our numbers'

Prof. Vella also expressed some regret for the way national educational policy has developed over the past decades, arguing that the government’s focus on turning MCAST into an alternative academic institution was misplaced.

MCAST and other such institutions should have been tasked with vocational education and be much larger in size than the University, he said. But that is not the case.

“Instead of building a robust and fit for purpose vocational sector to complement University, we are letting the vocational sector mimick University,” he said.

“MCAST should have four times our student population. But in this country we have more people in academic training than vocational training.”

'Expand vocational education' - MCAST principal

MCAST principal and CEO Stephen Vella called for vocational and applied education to be extended as he slammed the university rector’s comments about the institution attempting to “mimic” the university as “misleading”.

Vella said the real challenge facing Malta’s education sector is not the existence of different institutions rather it is ensuring that Maltese students are offered programmes that respond to industry needs.

“Malta should be expanding vocational and applied education, not questioning its existence or importance,” he said.

He pointed out that suggesting that the growth of vocational and applied education is somehow responsible for the University’s difficulties is “not only inaccurate but also risks diverting attention from the real issues that must be addressed”.

“The growth of MCAST is not the problem some portray it to be. It is, in fact, a necessary response to the evolving needs of a modern economy,” he added.

Vella pointed out that both the university and MCAST “serve important and different national functions” which are complementary and not competing.