The role of the university

Abstract

The University of Malta, with about 23 years' tradition as an academically autonomous institution (financially it is entirely dependent on Government funds), and after more than 200 years' tradition as a State University, is still trying to establish itself as a social force in independent Malta. After Britain's decision to hand over the patrolling of the Mediterranean to another Nation, the inevitable run-down of the Services at first created such an alarming social problem, the distress of unemployment, that the Maltese Government had no choice but to concentrate its efforts on the exploitation of alternative economic resources. It was inevitable that the almost nervous obsession with economic survival would overshadow the importance of those national and cultural values which are pondered upon and attended to when the government and society are free from the worries of a still unplanned and uncertain future.