Health Ministry, University mum on nursing refusals after recruitment campaign

Launched in July, the campaign – involving television and radio adverts, billboards and leaflets – was aimed specifically to entice more young people to take up positions as nurses with a view to addressing the problems caused by the national shortage.

But the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) revealed that despite the success of the campaign (evidenced by a sharp increase in applicants for the nursing course over previous years) applications had to be rejected, after the numerus clausus of 140 students were reached.

Out of the 300 nurses now applying to take up positions as nurses in the public sector, only 50 were Maltese, according to a statement released by Health Minister Joseph Cassar.

The rest were foreign, with the highest denomination - 46 – hailing from Pakistan. These will commence work in Malta in the coming days.

In reply to questions sent by this newspaper, a spokesman for the Health Ministry skirted the issue of why a campaign was launched in the absence of available places within the course offered by the University of Malta.

“It is the Faculty of Health Sciences within the University of Malta that is responsible for nursing training,” the spokesperson said yesterday. 

“The Ministry of Health agrees that such training must occur within available resources in order to ensure that standards of nursing education are upheld at all times.  The University has established that it can train up to 160 first year students each year.”

But no justification was given for the decision to embark on a costly advertising recruitment drive, which encouraged a record people to join a course for which the University was evidently unprepared.

Meanwhile, questions sent to the University to this effect were not answered at all.

Numerus Clausus: alive and kicking in tal-Qroqq

News that nursing course placements remain limited at the University must have come as a cold shower to those under the impression that ‘numerus clausus’ was a thing of the past.

Opening the University of Malta’s doors to as many applicants as possible was in fact a fundamental goal of policy makers since 1987, as evidenced by the subsequent explosion in Tal-Qroqq’s student population from less than a thousand 20 years ago, to over 9,000 today.

However, continuing limitations on numbers of students allowed into certain courses is reminiscent of Labour government’s trends in the 1980s, where numerus clausus was applied on many courses: notably, medicine.

A spokesperson from the University of Malta assures that this is today only applied on a very small number of courses and is mostly due to the fact that not enough qualified specialists are available to serve as supervisors particularly in the dissertation areas.

Students are selected on the advice of the Admissions Committee according to grades received in Matriculation Certificate Examinations or other similar examining boards. The students achieving the best grades are selected.

The Faculty of Arts limits the number of students reading for a Masters in Interpreting to only 12 students, saying that qualified professionals that could serve as tutors prefer to work in the industry rather than teach.

The same is said for courses relating to Biomedical Sciences. A maximum of 12 students are accepted onto Masters in Biomedical Sciences programmes with only two of these specialising in the area of toxicology.

The Faculty of Dentistry puts a limit of only six EU nationals and two non-EU nationals on its bachelor degree and this depends on the number of suitable patients available for practical training.

With regard to the Faculty of Health Care Sciences limitations are set as students are required to practice under the supervision of qualified staff. Numbers accepted into the course will depend on the number of mentors, patients and specialist equipment available at the hospital for training. 

The Masters of Science in Pharmacy intake is limited according to funds available to run dissertation and research projects. It is currently limited to six EU students and two non-EU students.

The Faculty of Education is affected by the limited amount of classes available for teaching practice and imposes limits depending on the area of specialisation.

Numerus clausus is not a phenomenon reserved only for Malta. Many universities in continental Europe currently use this where the number of applicants greatly exceeds the number of places available to students. In Germany the number of students has increased by 100% since the 1980s while the number of professors has only increased 25%. Competitive exam results are the only way to secure a place in the university of choice. Finland, Switzerland, Hungary and Poland are among countries where numerusclausus is prevalent throughout their universities.