Time for University stipends to go – dean

The money invested in student stipends should instead be allocated to funding research and laboratory equipment, according to the dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta. “Although our work fares well at international level, our University does not place highly in the world university ranking systems due to the limited capacity and investment,” said John Betts. The academic’s statements echo similar unheeded calls made in the past by independent stakeholders, but Dr Bett’s plea comes as both of the major parties are not only pledging in their electoral programmes to keep the system but also to adjust it in line with the cost of living. He pointed out that the emphasis on stipends came at a price, which was paid through under-investment in other areas. “I think that it’s time for the stipend money to be invested in funding research instead. Our research budgets are too low,” said Dr Betts, 45. He explained that, with insufficient funds, his faculty could not operate and, in the long term, would be unsustainable. “In the best of cases, the quality of the degrees will fall drastically; in the worst, we will be reduced to a full theory-based research-free...