Have the conditions surrounding AUM’s licence to operate as a university changed in any way?

Questions have been raised about whether the conditions surrounding the American University of Malta (AUM) licence agreement have been changed after replies were provided this week to a number of Parliamentary Questions.

Shadow minister for education Therese Comodini Cachia asked Education Minister Evarist Bartolo: “According to the concession contract... this company [Sadeen Education Investment Limited] is obliged to implement a project which includes the academic leadership and operations of the University.

“Can the Minister say where the licence granted by the National Commission for Further and Higher Education (NCFHE) for the leadership and operations of the University was issued in the name of the same company, and if not, under which entity was it issued?”

To which, Bartolo replied: “The licence for AUM to operate as a university was issued by the NCFHE to ‘American University of Malta,’ under the operations of Sadeen Education Investment Limited.”

In a lengthy speech e former NCFHE chairperson Martin Scicluna had said that: “The Group [Sadeen Group] has set up a company in Malta called Sadeen Malta Holding Company Limited, which plans to operate two subsidiaries: Sadeen Education Investments Limited and the American University of Malta Foundation.

“Sadeen Education Investment Limited (or SEIL for short), the operating company within the structure, will carry out the development of the Project and will be responsible for the ancillary commercial operations.

“The Foundation – and may I stress this – the Foundation will be responsible for the university’s academic operations.”

In addition to this, 16 strict conditions were imposed on the AUM and its licence was granted on the basis that those conditions are followed.

Four of the 16 conditions relate to the American University of Malta Foundation, relating to approval on any proposed changes to the AUM foundation’s beneficiaries, that the Foundation is properly registered in the Registry for Legal Persons and that Sadeen provides the NCFHE with a full list of beneficiaries of the Foundation.

The new chairperson of the NCFHE, Godfrey Vella, has, in his numerous replies to The Malta Independent’s questions relating to AUM, stressed that the entity has not been in any material breach of the conditions imposed by it.

There has been no mention of the AUM’s academic leadership and operations being overseen by a Foundation. The speech made by the former NCFHE chairperson was delivered on 30 June 2016, while on the AUM website it reads that the licence was officially granted in September 2016.

This therefore raises questions if further negotiations took place between 30 June 2016 and September 2016.

In view of the public land which has been awarded to the Jordanian company behind the project, without a mandate from the public, full transparency is expected of the entire project.

AUM opened its doors to students in September 2017, and has been plagued by controversy after it became known that no less than 12 full-time academic faculty staff were let go over the Christmas break just days before their probationary period ended.