Education Commissioner slams MCAST over undisclosed top-up payments

Malta’s national vocational college, MCAST, is under renewed scrutiny after failing to act on a formal recommendation by the Commissioner for Education to end a long-standing, secretive allowance scheme for certain ICT lecturers — a practice the Ombudsman has condemned as discriminatory and lacking transparency.

The findings, now laid before the House of Representatives, centre on a confidential €8,160 annual top-up payment awarded to select lecturers within MCAST’s Institute of ICT. The allowance, introduced in 2006 to attract industry professionals into teaching, was never formally included in any collective agreement and remained hidden from other qualified staff teaching similar subjects.

Despite a detailed investigation concluding that the arrangement amounted to maladministration and violated principles of fair treatment, MCAST did not implement the corrective measures urged by the Commissioner. As a result, the case was escalated: first to the Prime Minister in April, and ultimately to Parliament, where the full report has now been tabled.

The inquiry was launched in response to a complaint made in June 2024 by a member of MCAST’s academic staff, who alleged that the top-up allowance was administered in secret and offered only to individuals personally approached to complete a short course — excluding others who may have been equally qualified.

The Commissioner’s investigation confirmed that knowledge of the allowance was confined to the ICT Institute and never publicly advertised, even in relevant job postings. MCAST itself admitted that lecturers outside the institute were not informed of the scheme.

“This lack of transparency — whether due to neglect or design — created an environment of improper discrimination and undermined the principles of fairness in public education,” Education Commissioner Vincent De Gaetano concluded.

A separate ruling by the Industrial Tribunal in 2023 had also criticised the continued disbursement of the allowance in the absence of a current mandate or clear justification.

The Commissioner recommended that MCAST disclose the eligibility criteria for the allowance on its website, publish anonymised data on recipients since the scheme’s inception, and report the total amount disbursed over the years. These recommendations were ignored.