MCAST Bill 35: ‘control’ is a PLPN vice – Ralph Cassar
Let me start by putting my cards on the table. I am employed as an academic at MCAST and I haven’t sought any permission to write this article as I believe that. in an academic institution. this should neither be necessary nor required. I thought I had missed something very important when I read Kevin Cassar’s article ‘The legalisation of oppression’ (January 28). Cassar conflates two separate issues, Bill 35, a standalone bill replacing the articles in the Education Act regulating MCAST, and the issue of a teacher employed by the education department seconded with MCAST and MCAST’s refusal to comply with a court decision. I will focus on Cassar’s missive about Bill 35. Cassar misleads because the issue with the bill is not “the legalisation of oppression”. The bill is practically ‘copy and paste’ of whole sections of the previous Education Act. If anything, it is a continuation of the “oppression” in the previous Education Act. The bill retains the government’s total control of MCAST. But what’s new? It already has control through the fact that institutions such as MCAST and the University of Malta are bankrolled by the state. Financial control is the greatest form of control.