December 6, 2024 at 11:55 am
PR: MCAST- The Government attacks continue to strengthen MUT and its cause towards quality education at MCAST
MUT strongly rejects the claim that MUT’s requests in the new collective agreement shall hinder educational quality. The Union is always after quality education and it is the guiding principle of its operations. It was the Government which instead led to the degradation of educational quality at MCAST. Over the past few years the number of hours per unit taught at MCAST was reduced drastically, in some units by half. This meant that a syllabus which was written to be conducted through six lessons per week is now being conducted through 3 lessons – a reduction of half the hours assigned to teaching. Furthermore for years the Government has not issued calls for technician grades to replace retiring and resigned personnel and has reduced the service at MCAST to a skeleton staff. This when the vocational nature of the college and the expansion of MCAST in the past years requires a strong team to support teaching and learning.
Speaking to MUT, members are stating that the ‘fun’ aspect of teaching has been completely removed through the unilateral cuts in the teaching hours per unit and the absence of resources. Experimentation, practical work and experiential learning are now very limited given the said decisions and it is what students have been looking for when opting to study at MCAST. How can the government expect lecturing grades at MCAST to deliver a syllabus written for six lessons weekly to be delivered in three lessons per week? How can the Government expect students to grasp the principles and to practice them during their studies when the Government reduced the number of teaching hours? Is this the quality of education that is being provided by the Government? How can the Government state that MUT wants to reduce the educational quality when the MUT and its members have denounced repeatedly the reduction in the teaching hours to students?
The MUT offered solutions about this in negotiations, which are conveniently being side-lined and ignored by the Government as it would expose its systematic reduction in the educational quality at MCAST. Instead the Government through its Permanent Secretaries at OPM and the Education Ministry together with the MCAST Principal is choosing the confrontational way with MUT to try to mask its systematic failures.
The MUT rejects all the statements by the Permanent Secretary at OPM Dr Joyce Cassar. MUT never requested students to be at MCAST at 6am. This is nonsense. The Government turned a flexi-time proposal which was not for lecturing grades and for students and twisted it. It did the same with the claim that MUT is requesting more leave than working hours for its grades. These are false. Similarly the MUT never requested remuneration for failing students. This is inconceivable.
The MUT and its members will not be intimidated by these tactics. The Union reiterates that it is still open to negotiations towards a satisfactory agreement if the Government wants to negotiate instead of attacking the MUT and abandoning social dialogue.
