MCAST students urge MCAST and MUT to reach agreement

Following the Malta Union of Teachers’ (MUT) announcement that lecturers will be taking industrial action at MCAST, Danika Formosa and Nathaniel Cutajar, both elected student representatives on the Council of Institutes (COI), urged MCAST and the MUT to resolve issues before the situation got worse.

There are three major stakeholders in this issue – the MCAST management, the lecturers and the students, and each are at stake.

“Students are most often caught in the middle of the disputes, bearing the consequences of disagreements or lack of agreements between MCAST and lecturers,” the students said in a statement.

While understanding that the MUT and MCAST are in dispute over several issues and that the collective agreement has been expired for more than a year now, action, even when justified, creates a stressful atmosphere at college, they said.

“Many students are in their final year of their studies and these distractions may hinder their learning process and progress, and eventually also certification. From a students’ perspective, tight deadlines, a large number of assignments and exams, and demanding units need time and dedication.

Consequently, if lecturers are not working under the right conditions for them to do their job well, MCAST and the MUT should reach a conclusion on how this can be rectified in a sustainable manner.

Finally, students will be graduating this week and their lecturers are not going to be present. Lecturers are crucial stakeholders in student’s education and students would like their teachers to be present; especially since there are some students graduating with a degree which has opened for the first time (first cohort).”

As student representatives on the Council of Institutes board, Formosa and Cutajar strongly urged MCAST and the MUT to treat this matter urgently and conclude on disputes so as to avoid the situation getting out of hand, as had happened in 2008.