How big a pinch in government spending is €175,000 per annum? That is the figure that Education Minister Evarist Bartolo claims to be saving the public purse by removing the smart card system and transforming that portion of money into a grant going directly into the students’ purses.
There seem to be murmurs of new controls (checks and balances) on how such money is spent by students – such controls seem to have the nihil obstat of the KSU president who suggested a system of providing receipts for purchases. Sadly no one has yet mentioned how much said systems of checks and balances would cost, consequently we do not even know whether the new cost will be cheaper than the above mentioned administrative expenses that are needed to keep the smart card system in place.
Beyond the petty accounting from a government that increased the annual emoluments to its appointees by €25,000,000 last year (had to put the zeroes to give you a sense of perspective), the move to remove the smart card may have been packaged in the attractive (but deceptive) wrapping of a money saving exercise but it belies a hapless approach to the very reason of the existence of stipends (and maintenance grants, and ring-fenced expenses).
As was argued a good 16 years ago by KSU (and yes, I did form part of that KSU) every time you discuss stipends you have to be aware of why they exist. 16 years ago it was convincingly argued by the KSU before the Galdes Commission that stipends were still a necessary incentive to keep thousands of students out of the work market and in the tertiary level of education. The report we produced in 1998 is too long to summarise here but you can get a read on this link.
Now this government does not seem to be questioning the need for maintaining a system of stipends and grants. The changes were simply cosmetic based on spurious economic justifications. It is rather ironic that the KSU should be in favour of the switch away from smart cards while the GRTU expresses its disappointment. Well, not so ironic given that the main flaw of the outgoing system seems to have been the abuses by retailers who were never intended to be part of such a scheme. The idea behind smart cards was to ensure that the expenses strictly related to educational requirements of the students could be controlled. Money intended for books and stationery would not end up spent on vodka and Easter weekends in Gozo.
Nanny state? Maybe. But this was intrinsically linked with the basic policy of why stipends existed. It is easy to take the Daily Mail approach to stipends and start off your average newspaper column with a whinge about how students have it so easy and that it is about time that stipends are removed. Thatt does not mean that you have the bigger picture in mind. it just means that you are willing to ride the wave of public sentiment that is always so popular in Malta.
The truth is that stipends should form part of a wider set of targets and policies that not only effect the educational levels of our nation but also employment and development policy. Bartolo’s lame excuse of saving the equivalent of one-third of the spending on a Joseph Calleja concert is ridiculous when seen from this wider perspective. As things stand, a specific measure designed to ensure that a substantial part of the monies allocated to subsidising student autonomy in tertiary education is used for the purpose for which it was intended has been shot down with no effective replacement in sight.
Sure, the system was being abused – but rather than create a better check and punish abusers the government has chosen an easy way out that utterly compromises the whole idea of ring-fencing the student subsidy system. By saving €176,000 on an imperfect system of checks and balances, the government has now opted for no checks and balances – at least until we are told whether any new system is in place and what it entails (and how much that one will cost).
As for the KSU, they might be applauding this move enthusiastically but policy wise they should be seeing this as a heavy burden to carry next time a new debate comes up as to the necessity of stipends in this day and age. By discarding any possibility of restricting the spending to educational purposes they have also discarded one of the most convincing elements in favour of Malta’s very specific approach to tertiary education subsistence.
From MaltaToday:
The Education Minister added that students were already spending their grant in non-related educational expenses and, in this way, student would learn how to be responsible with their money.
KSU President Gayle Lynn Callus welcomed the reform but called on government to ensure checks and balances are in place on how the students spend their grant.
Also: The KSU 1999 Stipends Survey documents are available here.
