[WATCH] Government wants to 'drastically' reduce university's Zonqor footprint

Ministers attend MCESD meeting to discuss 'American University'. Video: Chris Mangion

The government is committed to 'drastically' reducing the impact of a private university on virgin land at Zonqor Point, Environment Minister Leo Brincat said.

Addressing a meeting of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development to discuss the 'American University of Malta' project, Brincat insisted that the originally proposed project was sustainable. 

"Many people in Malta are under the notion that sustainable development is simply about protecting the environment, whereas the UN describes it as being about the economy, social order and environment in that order," Brincat said. "Despite the controversy surrounding the project, the government has requested the public to seek alternative sites, and not as a means of shrugging off responsibility onto third parties."

He hit out at environmental NGOs who have criticised him for not speaking out enough in favour of the environment. 

"My role isn't that of an NGO, but you can rest assured that I make my ministerial voice heard on all projects that I feel obliged to," Brincat said.

Economy Minister Chris Cardona said that the government wants the country’s economic growth to reach all areas of the island.

“On average, families in the south earn 10% less than the Maltese average,” he said. “The university will be this decade’s greatest investment in the south,”

He said that each of the 4,000 students that the university is expected to attract will spend around €15,000 in Malta on non-university fee expenses, a total annual injection of €60 million into the economy. Moreover, he said that the relatives and friends of students studying in foreign countries tend to visit them and that each student could hence inject €1,000 in tourism.

He added that the university will create around 350 jobs and that some of its students could invest in start-up businesses in Malta.

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo allayed fears that a recently published legal notice could lower Malta’s tertiary educational standards.

“We will not allow rogue universities that dish out false degrees to operate here and no institution will be able to purchase a license to operate a university,” Bartolo said.

The controversial legal notice, published in May, allows the National Commission for Further Higher Education to invoke "national interest" as an additinal criterion through which it can green-light an educational institution as a university.

However, Bartolo insisted that this does not give the government powers to pick and choose its favoured institutions to operate as universities, while citing “national interest” as a legal reason.

“The clause will make institutions eligible to apply for University status on the basis of national interest, but will not grant them that status. Their programmes would still have to pass through a rigorous, professional and independent quality assurance test by a committee appointed by the NCFHE. They will then send their recommendations to the NCFHE board who will decide whether to approve the said institution as a university or not. The government has no role to play in this process.”

He said that the legal notice was enacted to lower the amount of programmes that private institutions need to offer to operate as universities from six to four.

“Institutions such as St. Martins, Middlesex University Malta and Computer Domain already offer less than six programmes, but the NCFHE took the programmes offered by their partnered foreign universities into account when green-lighting them.”