Full Executive List

Hayden Pesci – President
Thea Vella – Vice President
Britney Spiteri – General Secretary
Chantelle Micallef – PRO
Rohasia Zammit – KPS
Sarah Tabone – KE
Tiffany Galea – KKD
Tyler Cappello – Media Officer
Yassine Callejja – Financial Officer

Presidential Comment

I would like to thank the Pulse administration for trusting me with the role of president. We promise that KSM and MCAST as you know it, under this team’s term, will change. There will be several reforms and rebranding, as well as a whole restructuring of the council, and we will truly be the voice of MCAST students.

The Third Eye would like to wish the new executive the best of luck for their upcoming term!

The post All 9 Pulse Candidates Elected In KSM appeared first on The Third Eye.

Maria Bonaci, a Pulse candidate, collected 63% of the vote, whilst Armando Xerri gathered the remaining 37% of the vote. Therefore, Pulse successfully managed to elect all 9 candidate into the executive team.

Pulse President went on to say the following:

Pulse once again elects all nine candidates for the KSM-MCAST Student Council, led by Bradley DeBono.

The team listed below received 63 percent of the votes cast by MCAST students. With the slogan “Exceeding Expectations”, Pulse candidates contested the KSM elections, releasing a record-breaking Manifesto with over 130 proposals for MCAST students.

 The newly elected council promises students that they will work hard to raise a strong voice and to represent MCAST students in the best possible way.

Meet the newly appointed council:

Bradley DeBono – President

Denilson Brincat – Vice President

Maria Bonaci – General Secretary

Shelseya Tanti – PRO

Xavier Sant – Financial Officer

 Hayden Pesci – KPS

Rebecca Mifsud – KE

Neil Xuereb – KKD

Tyler Cappello – KKD

The Third Eye wishes the newly appointed KSM team all the best in the coming year!

The post 9\9 for Pulse in KSM Elections appeared first on The Third Eye.

It is no doubt that this pandemic resulted in great stress to a lot of people, especially students that are feeling confused about how to tackle their assignments, exams, and dissertations. Some students are unable to continue their qualitative research and field tests due to the precautions taken for their health. This definitely alters their dissertation’s objective altogether. Aside from the school stress, some students also live by themselves and might have lost their jobs, it is too much on their plate.

Students are facing various mental health challenges and lack of motivation due to this pandemic’s repercussions as students are deprived of practicing certain hobbies and going out. The only activity they are seeing is their laptop slowly piling up with assignments.

Staying at home does not mean having all the time you desire – not everyone is on the same boat but everyone is coping with this pandemic differently. Students are not studying and working from home, students are staying home during a crisis TRYING to work and study. The sudden shift from exams to assignments was overwhelming and the workload has skyrocketed.

A study on mental health

The impact this pandemic left on our mental health is a prominent topic that students are currently discussing. Richmond Foundation teamed up with the leading research company Esprimi, in order to conduct a survey to see what impacts this pandemic left on mental health in Malta. It was found that more than half of the respondents were feeling depressed. This clearly shows that just because someone is in the comfort of their own home, it does not mean they are feeling their best.

An MCAST student also approached us to talk about their personal experience;

I started psychotherapy during the first semester mainly because I started to develop patterns I have never experienced before such as self-sabotaging, insomnia, and tension headaches.

Unfortunately, this pandemic made the situation even worse.

This is why I am putting my concerns forward; COVID-19 has changed our lives completely and other individuals like me are dealing with a spectrum of tough situations whilst trying to keep it together to meet deadlines. I think it is for every student’s benefit, even to just give us some space to adapt to this situation, an extension to the dissertations and other laborious projects will put our minds at ease.

Students are stressed about their dissertation and what they are getting in return are adaptation and coping strategies. On MCAST’s frequently asked questions section, it is suggested that extensions can be allowed if the request is justified. However, according to the students, this is not a matter of whether it should be justified or not, an extension should have been granted from the start.

The Third Eye reached out to KSM to see how they are tackling the situation and Bradley Debono, Vice President, informed us of the following updates:

KSM is currently working with all MCAST Directors to try to ensure to issue as many extensions as possible. We also issued several emails to the MCAST Admin with several ideas on how we can help our students during this period. We are also keeping them updated through our social media platforms and groups and we ask students to forward their concerns through our Official Complaint System.

This morning one of the members of KSM, who is in the Council of Institutes, had a COI meeting where he further discussed the situation. The suggestion is to extend the final submission to the mid/end of June so it will give students more time to cope with their work. This will not only benefit the students mentally but it will also enable them to submit more professional work.

More updates to follow.

The post MCAST students not guaranteed dissertation extensions appeared first on The Third Eye.

For another year, SDM have decided not to contest this election and thus, all of Pulse’s candidates were automatically elected in council.

Jesmar Frendo shall be taking on the role of President. Bradley DeBono will be filling in the role of Vice-President.

The role of Secretary General will be taken on by Ann Marie Bezzina and Nadine Abela will be Public Relations Officer. Nicole Ciantar will be the Financial Officer in the council.

Ruud Chircop will be taking on the role of KPS whilst Maria Gauci will be the KE. Finally, the role of KKD will be taken on by Nicole Sciberras.

Pulse will face their final obstacle with regards to KSJC on 22nd November when an election shall take place to determine who will be filling in the role of KPS.

The Third Eye sends warm congratulations to the newly elected KSM Council!

The post Pulse elects 8 candidates in KSM – SDM does not contest appeared first on The Third Eye.

In a press release issued by the CoE they explained how a number of meetings had been held with the Engineering Board from which the following conclusions were drawn:

• The past MCAST graduates should bridge any deficiencies through targeted bridging studies comprised of 60 ECTS credits at level 6 with examination based assessment. These bridging studies should be reviewed by external reviewers
• The new MCAST courses should have 240 ECTS credits at level 6 again based mostly on examination assessment as well as being reviewed annually by external reviewers

Regardless of these agreements, the Engineering Board informed the CoE that the pre-warrant course would be only of 30 ECTS credits Level 6. This meant that MCAST Engineering students would only be doing a total of 150 ECTS credits at level 6 rather than a full 240 ECTS credits that was required by law to get a warrant and that University students were doing.

This was a continuation from last year’s controversy which broke out because MCAST students were going to be given warrants regardless of the discrepancy between the UM and MCAST courses. Whilst the UM course is of 240 ECTS MQF Level 6, the MCAST course consisted of 120 ECTS MQF Level 5 (first and second year) and another 120 ECTS MQF Level 6 (third and fourth year).

Following talks between KSU, UESA, the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects and the Engineering Board in September 2018 it was agreed upon that the underlying principle behind this process of introducing a Pre-Warrant Qualification Course must remain “one profession, one standard”. This is why UESA and KSU are in agreement that moving forward these courses should be made equivalent by any means and not have half the intended course substituted by 30 ECTS.

When contacted by The Third Eye, Matthew Xuereb, outgoing UESA President [who is in office till the end of May] gave his statement in light of how the situation is developing:

UESA believes that any solution related to this issue must be realised in a spirit of transparency such that the interests of our members are safeguarded.

Having said this, we look forward to further dialogue with the hope of resolving such a sensitive issue. In the meantime UESA is considering all options available to safeguard the interests of Engineering students at the University of Malta.

Both KSU and UESA have published press releases to voice their concerns as to how this agreement was disregarded without any further consultation with the stakeholders involved.

UESA have asked for an immediate revision of the currently ongoing Pre-Warrant Qualification Course “so as to ensure that students who complete this course are in possession of such degree of the University of Malta or an equivalent academic qualification as stipulated in the Engineering Profession Act.”

The lack of transparency, consultation and the refusal by the relevant authorities to recognize and address the serious concerns of students, graduates and warrant-holders alike risks damaging society’s trust in the engineering profession.

UESA, University Engineering Students Association

UESA continued to stress how this lack of transparency is increasingly prevalent considering that MCAST has apparently also refrained from publishing any details about the bridging studies course, with no mention of such course in its annual prospectus.

KSU echoed UESA’s laments and both stated that looking forward they are actively considering all options available to safeguard the interests of our members.

The Chamber of Engineers concluded that an EGM shall be held in the coming days to give the opportunity to everyone to express their views on the way forward from here.

The post Engineering Board Gives MCAST Students HALF the ECTS Agreed Upon For Warrant appeared first on The Third Eye.

The student organisation PULSE were uncontested and were therefore automatically elected for the council.

The Kunsill Studenti MCAST (KSM) for the academic year 2018/19 will be composed of the following students:

President – Ahmed Lamlum

Vice-President – Jesmar Frendo

Secretary General – Annmarie Bezzina

Financial Officer – Chantal Abela

Public Relations Officer – Nicholai Debono

KPS – Angelo Muscat

KE – Naomi Camilleri

KKD – Bradley Debono

The Third Eye team would like to congratulate the new team on being elected to KSM and wishes them the best of luck in their work for this new term!

The post Pulse Automatically ELECTED to KSM appeared first on The Third Eye.

Liam Cassar stated: “We have decided not to contest for KSM elections this year, because we don’t have the guarantee that things are going to move smoothly because of certain things that happened in past years.

Although we will not be contesting for elections and will not be in KSM, our work will persist so that we are always near the student.”

From his end, Pulse President Owen Grech, expressed that like SDM, there were times where Pulse did not contest for elections, referring to the short hiatus from contesting the KSU elections, and said that every organisation has their reason for why they should not contest and it is ultimately up to the organisation.

Despite this he also mentioned and emphasised that organisations are not electoral machines and there are many ways in which an organisation can represent all the students. Representation is something that goes beyond elections and student councils.

Finally, Grech stated that from his organisation’s end, a team is ready for another term in KSM and like every other year they made sure that all students being nominated to contest have MCAST and the student’s needs at heart. He continued by expressing the fact that every year, one of the students is specifically from Gozo to make sure that all students are represented.

Owen Grech also unveiled with The Third Eye, that Ahmed Lamlum shall be contesting for the role of President for the second time in a row which Grech noted as the element of continuation in the council.

The post SDM not contesting KSM elections; Ahmed Lamlum to represent Pulse appeared first on The Third Eye.

We asked UoM engineering students and graduates to chime in on this issue. The following are their comments.

“It is unfair and unprofessional giving MCAST Engineering students and graduates the opportunity of receiving the Engineering Warrant” said UoM students and graduates.

To them, the UoM course is way more demanding than the MCAST course. In their words, assignments are tougher, subjects which span over multiple semesters at UoM are condensed at MCAST and lecturers at UoM are less lenient than those at MCAST when it comes to marking. The latter is seen in certain subjects which cause a drastic decrease in first year UoM students like in a particular year in which 110 starting students dropped to around 80 students from first to second year due to the tough nature of the course.

Some other comments which sparked interested stated that if they want to identify MCAST and UoM students as equals, then the entry requirements must be equal to those of UoM and the assessments given to MCAST students on par with those of UoM.

Current UoM students argued that particular students currently in the MCAST engineering course have part time jobs in a demanding position or work whilst students at UoM could barely enjoy free time during the four-year course, adding to the imbalance of the courses. The MCAST course has since the writing of this article changed the course requirements needing applicants’ grades to be an average of C or better. So an A and E in physics and maths A-Level is still sufficient to be eligible for the course commencing 2019. Previous students could be eligible with both maths and physics at grade E.

Another issue outlined by students is that students applying for an engineering course know the difference between MCAST and UoM outcomes. The UoM course comes with a degree and the possibility of a warrant, whilst (up until now) the MCAST course did not offer a warrant after graduating. The fact that students applying for MCAST with the full knowledge of not being able to receive a warrant after graduation and then fighting for one angered many UoM students.

To them this means that a school specialised in training highly skilled technicians (MCAST), is going over and above their capacity, and training fully qualified and warranted engineers in just two extra years after having completed the MCAST diploma. Students argued that this will therefore decrease the UoM applicants as these will choose the easy way out of the course and they will still get full recognition even though the calibre of the course is different.

Some other students said that not only is the UoM course tougher than the MCAST course, but it also competes with the rest of the EU and they said that clear proof of this is in ERASMUS exam marks, in which Maltese students achieve better grades abroad than locally for the same subject’s equivalent with the same amount of study work. In turn, students said that there are those who apply for MCAST and after completing their studies apply for the UoM course just to be eligible for the warrant, meaning that these students ‘wasted’ time. These same students are seeking a form of compensation for wasted time. Adding to this, some students also said that they know people who failed the UoM course after repeating a year in said course and then applied for the same course at MCAST and their grades suddenly shot up.

“Il-linja ta’ Inginier m’ghadiex worth it. U mil-lum ‘il quddiem, izjed. U nhossni hlejt 5 snin minn hajti” – An engineering graduate from UoM that upon completing MCAST studies applied to the UoM course.

“Mur gib kirurgu li dahal ghall-kors bla bazi ta’ bijologija O-level x’ konna nghidu.” – Implying that society does not care as much about engineers as it does for other fields.

“Jaghmel sens li inginiera (ta’ UoM) ikunu jafu x-xoghol kollu, hands-on u teorija, imma mbaghad ma naqbilx li ghax taghmel 80% hands on (MCAST) titqies ta’ inginier warranted.” – Implying the great difference between the two courses.

“Immagina taghmilha t-tobba jew l-avukati x’hassle jinqala’” – Implying that giving the possibility of a warrant to MCAST graduates in the health and law fields would cause uproar from UoM students in the same situation.

The last issue that was brought forward was that working engineers are rarely paid for overtime and are also not paid enough, this means that an unwarranted worker with a lower ranking in the same company can easily reach the same salary as a warranted engineer working extra unpaid hours.

This is not an elitism issue – this is a professional one. The crux of the issue is not “Your course is easier than ours, and so we feel it’s unfair that you should get equal recognition”, but rather “Your course lacks certain key elements that are fundamental to engineering, and so it is unfair that an MCAST graduate be given the same merits as a university graduate”. It stems from a gross misunderstanding of what an engineering professional does.

A student does not choose to go to university to get their BEng simply for the brownie points of “attending uni”, in the same way that a practical arts student might choose to go to university over MCAST (which some argue would be the preferred institution). An engineer goes to university because engineering is not a vocational field, and requires extensive academic training, on par with scientists and medical doctors. It is therefore important, now more than ever, that the general public realises what the true job of an engineer is, if they are to appreciate the concerns raised by Engineers and UoM students.

A particular comment stood out in The Times of Malta’s article by lecturer Marc Anthony Azzopardi saying “Every year more and more students are choosing to undertake the Engineering course offered by MCAST rather than the one offered by the University of Malta because they think that it is easier. The real reason behind this is that the University’s Engineering course goes into further depth and teaches students both practical and theoretical aspects. Giving students of both institutions the same qualifications is unfair to current University students and will keep worsening the University’s student intake.”

KSU and UESA (University Engineering Students’ Association) have since released comments regarding the matter and said that “as long as there is equality in standards between the engineering courses in both institutions, any engineering student in either institution should have the right to sit for an interview and be granted the warrant.” Meaning that there is the need for equal standards between the highly similar yet opposing courses.

More importantly KSU and UESA request that the full results of the evaluation carried out by German experts, the ASIIN (Akkreditierungsagentur für Studiengänge der Ingenieurwissenschaften, der Informatik, der Naturwissenschaften und der Mathematik e. V.) meaning Accreditation Agency for Degrees of Engineering, Computer Science, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, who evaluated both UoM and MCAST engineering courses, to be made public for clarity’s sake.

The post “Why did I even bother getting the degree from UoM?”, UoM Engineering Graduate appeared first on The Third Eye.