Updated 6.44pm Students meet PM

A group of medical students following an online course with a local educational institution have travelled to Malta, in a desperate attempt to get a clear answer about their warrants. 

Local authorities have so far refused to commit to issuing the students with a medical warrant once they complete their studies. The warrant is a prerequisite for them to be able to practice as medical doctors. 

The students hand-delivered letters to the educational and health authorities and managed to set up a meeting with the Medical Council, which was not replying to their queries about this long-standing issue.

They also met Prime Minister Robert Abela outside parliament. Abela said he would look into the matter, though he noted that the Medical Council was autonomous.

Set up in Malta some four years ago, the Malta-based online medical school, EDU, last year took court action against the government, claiming that years of delays by the authorities have left its students unable to be certified as doctors.

Originally called the European Digital University, EDU offers an online medical degree programme at bachelor's and master's level, complemented by clinical hands-on training in Germany. It is operated by Digital Education Holdings, a company registered in Malta.

The school says that its medical programme is being delivered under the supervision of Maastricht University and with the EDU Teaching Hospital partners.

Prime Minister Robert Abela speaks to an EDU student representative outside parliament.

EDU student representative Christopher Loitz told Times of Malta that while the educational institution has all the required certification and accreditation by the Maltese authorities, including the National Commission for Further and Higher Education (NCFHE), the Malta Medical Council was still refusing to give them clarity on whether it will issue a warrant that would allow them to work as doctors.

For the more than 150 students to become certified as medical professionals after graduation, EDU needs its degree to be recognised in Malta.

EDU risks going under

Loitz said the issue was creating uncertainty for them as students as well as academic staff and investors.

He said the EDU management informed them last week that investors had decided to pull the plug on their investment, given that they did not have the certainty that the degree would be recognised.

“We came to Malta to try resolve this issue which has been pending for far too long. We have taken loans to pay the course which costs some €100,000. Some of us will lose two or three years of studies if our course is stopped because of this issue,” he said.

EDU’s lawyers wrote to the Medical Council last week asking it to treat the matter as “extremely urgent” since the status quo was “critically threatening the financial and operational functions of EDU”.

They explained that the law was very clear and that it was the Medical Council which was the competent authority legally authorised and empowered to recognise formal qualifications such as the EDU degree and to confirm that the individuals had fulfilled the medical training requirements.

The student council also wrote to the Medical Council, expressing its concerns with the process and duration for the issuance of certifications required for professional recognition according to EU directives.

“Without your certification, our dreams of working as medical doctors in our communities after strenuous but joyful years of studying medicine at EDU may not come true. In order to be able to practice as a physician in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, where currently most of the EDU students intend to work or in any other EU country, we need with our Master of Medicine degree also your certificate of conformity and equivalence in accordance with the EU directive,” they wrote.

The students have started to collect a petition which so far garnered more than 1,700 signatures. They have deposited it at the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday, hoping that their issue is resolved as soon as possible.