A Malta-based online medical school has taken court action against the government, claiming that years of delays by the authorities have left its students unable to be certified as doctors.
The EDU, originally called the European Digital University, was set up in Malta four years ago. It offers an online medical degree programme complemented by clinical hands-on training in Germany.
EDU’s chief executive Jürgen Laarz told Times of Malta that although the programme is certified by educational authorities in Malta, there is no process for the programme's students to become recognised as doctors.
In order for its more than one hundred students to become certified as medical professionals after graduation, EDU needs its degree to be recognised in Malta.
“This is creating a lot of uncertainty for our students, our academic staff, and also our investors. How can we explain this situation to them?” he said.
The institute of higher education has now taken the matter to the local courts.
In a judicial protest filed in court this week, EDU’s lawyers, Mamo TCV, pin the blame on the Malta Medical Council and the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority as the two entities responsible for the “unreasonable” delay.
The judicial protest also names Prime Minister Robert Abela, Health Minister Chris Fearne, and the Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci as the head of the Health Regulation Department, as personally responsible.
Laarz said he and his team had held numerous meetings with the authorities over the past two years but registered close to no progress.
To make matters worse, earlier this month, after months of talks, the medical council had written to EDU informing it that it had doubts over whether it was even the competent authority to handle the request.
Emails sent to the OPM and Health Ministry went without even a basic acknowledgment, Laarz said.
This is not the first time the EDU has been in the headlines.
In 2019, Times of Malta reported how a group of European doctors feared the online university could be used as a backdoor for under-qualified doctors to work in EU hospitals.
At the time, Frank Montgomery, who chairs the Standing Committee of European Doctors, an EU-wide doctors’ lobby, had said he had no confidence in the course offered by the EDU and feared such practices could be a trend creeping into the EU’s medical sector, whereby physicians were certified by institutions that did not meet the necessary standards.
Back then, the government had said it was putting the EDU through a rigorous vetting process.
Questions sent to the government about the delayed process have not yet been answered.
The EDU argues that its teaching model is an innovative one that has also been validated externally by Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Laarz defended the EDU’s online approach.
The overall sentiment against digital learning, he said, has now become obsolete as higher learning institutions saw how well it can be implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you look at how we actually do the digital learning, you will see that it is actually blended learning, a mix of small teams for online courses, and practical sessions in the clinical setting too,” he said.