Smart card, smart request

Once again, another scholastic year has rolled around and all of the University of Malta's human resources are being put to the test. I must say that although every year there is some progress that is made in some faculties, it seems that the service in others gets worse.

An example of such progress is this: Three years ago the stipends department ingeniously decided to issue a smart card in order to hinder students from using the money on non-academic things. This smart card had to be signed and had to be shown when being used. However, it carried one flaw - receipts that were drawn up did not tell people how much money they had left in their account, and no identity card was asked for when using it. Last year, this little flaw of not telling people how much money they have left on their card was seen to. Still no identification was being asked for when people went to purchase things (or when I first picked up my smart card for that matter!).

This year, the department, has come up with the ingenious plan, which says that all smart cards must have a photo of the students, for the sake of identification. This, in my opinion, was brilliance on their part. Who would have thought three years ago that shop owners would never have asked for identification when they had 50 students waving a Lm200 credit card at them, demanding service?

As a result, I have received a lovely letter asking that I go down to Apoco in Birkirkara at 10.30 on Tuesday to take a photo and pick up my card. This thrills me as much as doing my identity card did.

What I cannot understand is that if the government has my photo, which was taken digitally, and my personal details from my identification card and I have had a smart card for two years already, why should I have to pose for another one? Would it shock the university if I were also to mention the fact that some students take their summer work seriously and as summer workers who have little or no benefits, we cannot just rush off to Apoco to take a photo at the drop of a hat. I, like many students, teach English to foreigners and cannot miss a class without running the risk that I might lose my students for a week.

In addition to this, why cannot students be given the option to go on a certain day, between 8 and 5 or 6, or better still, if they think that there are too many students, why aren't students being encouraged to e-mail a scanned copy of their identity card, library card, and a passport-sized photo?

Surely that would be proof or identification enough. Furthermore, if the stipends department bothered to check with the faculties they would be able to see that some faculties such as the Centre for Communications and Technology have scanned photos with the identification and details of each student from the second year up. This would help ensure that only students who have been attending university had a card issued.

I would think that with the correct number of staff, the cards could be issued just as efficiently as it would be if every single university student dropped by. It would mean that relatively few students would need to pick up their card from the stipends office, and the students would be doing some of the filing for them.

Why does life have to be so complicated?