There's nothing better than to get the new University scholastic year off to a controversial start by yet again bringing up the debate about whether a condom machine should find its place on Campus. This discussion was entirely prevalent towards the end of the last scholastic year, especially when KSU elections came about, and since then, talk about it hasn't died down. Indeed, companies like Vodafone only added fuel to the debate throughout Freshers' Week when they were seen distributing free condoms with their promotions in order to entice more customers to join them. However, the reality of the situation is that despite Vodafone's best efforts, we're still no closer to ending this age-long debate and finally finding a solution to this 'problem'.
But is it a problem in the first place? Why is University focusing on the installation of a condom machine on Campus when there are so many other things that need to be tackled with instantaneous effect; so many other things that are incredibly important and yet are not given priority? I'm relating to the perennial horror of horrors that us students have to face week in, week out - day in, day out actually, with the infamous parking problem that plagues the University grounds.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that for a population of 10,000 students, with them possibly rising to 11,000 in the near future and only on the up from year to year, 645 odd parking spaces to share are never going to be enough for them to cope with. Indeed, a look at the big car park near Gateway Building would often show many cars parked illegally on white lines or near the designated blue boxes that they're allowed to be parked in, to the extent that this car park is taking around 50 to 75 more cars than it should be occupying. The result: Chaos, confusion galore, and a lot of swearing from the frustrated student drivers trying to find the holy grail of a parking space. Students have also started looking towards using a rocky piece of land behind the Agriculture Institute, that resembles more of Cart Ruts rather than a parking area, to park their cars. The net result of this all is that if you're unlucky enough to have a lecture starting at 9, you still have to be at University by 8 o'clock as otherwise you'll have nowhere to park. Meanwhile, just beyond the concrete barrier that separates the students' part of the car park from the administration's side of it, one will be delighted to find at least half of the spaces empty, all available for parking. Unfortunately, not for students though - if a student does attempt to park his/her car, then the likelihood is that he/she will be greeted by a clamp and a €23 fine on his/her return. If your name is Jonathan Tonna, however, you'll be able to dispose of it quite easily!
Numerous letters have been written to the newspaper and complaints issued, but all have been to no avail so far. Last year's KSU did nothing to improve the situation for students, to the extent that the current administration has to sort out the mess of the previous administration and try and find some kind of solution to the problem. This attitude could be contrasted easily to the 2007/08 administration, where at one point in time, the then-President David Herrera ordered that students park wherever they want on a particular day so that they would make a statement to increase the parking spaces available. That worked back then, so why won't something to that extent work now? KSU have promised us a feasibility study into the possibility of making the big car park multi-storey, but this will be done, according to reports, by the end of this administration's term in office. Therefore, the earliest we would be able to see construction works start would be the beginning of the 2010/11 scholastic year, until which there will certainly be another massive influx of new cars, new drivers and new problems.
It's time to act on this situation and improve on the mess that we currently face as it's now, finally, got out of control! The only thing we're going to be seeing from that car park is a series of bashed up cars soon... and something in my head tells me that only if it is one of the KSU's members cars will we then start to see some form of action taken. A bit of an attitude like our current Government's... an attitude that I hope won't be resorted to.
God Bless You all!
Matti
4 comments:
Hey Matt,
What in my opinion was a blog which initially made some sense suddenly shifted into the complaining regarding parking of an uninformed student.
Previous KSU ie 08/09 had gone through all possibilities and exhausted any possible solution to the parking problem. Reports and information are readily available at KSU. Some of these options were of introducing a Park&Ride system of which no feasible area could be found close enough to university, Increasing the blue boxes by removing some of the white or yellow boxes which after hours of negotiations where unfortunately not attained due to several reasons. ( These reasons can also be found at the ksu office)
I can assure you that work is STILL being done for the Parking issue to be solved unfortunately the university premises is not able to cater for such a large amount of cars and this frustrates me as much as it frustrates you. However one cannot put the blame on an entity which is trying its best to help the student even though it has limited resources to do so (limited regarding space)
Anyhow with regards to the Condom Machine what's your opinion on MOVE's presentation today?
matt
i think rather than discussing such trivial matters as parking I would like to see your views on the tridentine mass which has been accepted by the current Pope and which has been currently been gaining ground in Malta
@ Stefan
I didn't shift any of the blame onto this administration, as you noted correctly (it's still way too early into the scholastic year to even dare pass judgement about the current KSU); but placed the blame on the previous KSU administration for letting the problem escalate, despite the reports written as you mentioned.
You're correct, 100%, in saying that I didn't know about these reports but the impression that I (and other students) got was that nothing was being done. Indeed, while reports and studies have been drafted up, we both know that the problem unfortunately still remains.
I don't know how this can be tackled. While KSU is responsible for safeguarding the students' rights at University, and for the most part, it does a good job in doing this, perhaps the notion of parking is something that has to be solved at a state level instead; perhaps it's the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Infrastructure that have to join forces and see what can be done in this regard.
Regarding the white/yellow boxes, that was one of the things that I mentioned in my arguments as well. Of course, though, the University administration/non-academic staff couldn't give two hoots about us students and that's why they don't want to budge on this. A case in point was when a certain Prof. Pace mentioned that "it's not [his] problem" that parking is absolutely horrendous for students at 9 am. However, I won't go into the propaganda of his lectures and the rather controversial decision to shift the time of his lectures just so that he doesn't leave Rabat at 7 am instead of 7.15.
Furthermore though, while a feasibility study into the underground/extension/above ground car park will be looked into by KSU, I personally can't envisage this happening in the near future - partially probably due to lack of funds and partially due to lack of will on behalf of the University to actually do something about it. Over and above that, I'd like to see how the public transport reform is going to affect University students before such a potential drastic step - although it's undoubtedly for the better - is taken.
Re: MOVE's presentation; I didn't attend it. I have better things to do then listen to debates about Condom Machines! (Indeed, the title and that opening paragraph about the machines was used as an intended trick to the reader). However, if you want my views on whether a condom machine should be installed on Campus or not, I'll be more than willing to talk about it in private :)
@ Alex
X'ghandu x'jaqsam?
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