The year 2026 marks MCAST’s 25th anniversary, although MCAST Gozo is technically a year younger. In 2001 MCAST offered its first course in Gozo through the Education Division at the Sir M. A. Refalo Centre for Further Studies (now Sir M. A. Refalo Sixth Form) in Victoria. The first dedicated MCAST Gozo Centre was officially opened in Xagħra by the then Minister for Gozo, Ms Giovanna Debono, in October 2002.

In the 2002–2003 academic year, the MCAST Gozo Centre enrolled 63 full‑time (day) students across seven courses. At that time Malta did not yet have a national qualifications framework; MCAST had been recently established to overhaul and modernise the country’s vocational education and training to meet the demands of the twenty‑first century. Just a year later, in October 2003, MCAST opened a second Gozo Centre in Xewkija to increase physical capacity and add specialised training facilities required by the expanding programme offerings.

In the following years, the Xagħra Centre hosted a range of business courses (including accounting and financial services) alongside ICT programmes (Levels 2 to 4, leading to specialisation in software development or hardware/networking support). The Xewkija Centre offered mechanical, electrical, building and construction engineering courses including carpentry, welding, fabrication and draughtsmanship, well as community services programmes in health and social care, and hairdressing.

Through these two centres, the College provided Gozitan school-leavers with alternative VET pathways within its remit as a further and higher education institution. It also fulfilled its role as a community college by supporting re-skilling and up-skilling for the Gozitan population in general. Notably, during this period, MCAST still delivered programmes developed and regulated by foreign awarding bodies, including City and Guilds and BTEC (Edexcel).

Over the years, the MCAST Gozo Centres went through a steady expansion in terms of programmes, courses (at different levels), resources, facilities and training opportunities. Important investments were made, particularly at the Xewkija Centre, to develop and equip high quality training facilities in different sectors. In particular, in 2008, new workshops, co-funded from the 2004-2006 European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), were inaugurated. This was undoubtedly a significant upgrade in our technical training facilities and the result of the relentless drive and effort by key officials, including Mr. Frederick Fearne – at the time, MCAST Projects Director and member of the MCAST Board of Governors. In the following years, the Xagħra and Xewkija Centres benefitted from significant investments in training equipment co-funded from 2007-2013 ERDF funding, through which MCAST acquired new PCs and a range of high-level equipment for its mechanical engineering and woodwork workshops.

These investments, carried out in the 2007-2013 EU funding period, were in excess of €700,000. Concurrently, other investments from College/national funds made it possible to offer new training programmes in additional areas. In fact, over a number of years, the College expanded its course provision at the Xewkija Centre, including health and social courses at Level 4, hairdressing programmes at Foundation and Level 3 diploma levels, and subsequently early childhood education at Level 4.

For twelve years, MCAST delivered its programmes in Gozo through these two centres. Needless to say, operating from a split-site meant coping with several administrative, logistic and efficiency problems.  Consequently, for many years, a long-term infrastructural objective was the development of the Xewkija Centre to be able to host all MCAST Gozo courses and students under one roof, an idea originally spearheaded by Mr. Frederick Fearne and subsequently developed by Mr. Manuel Attard, MCAST CAO and myself as MCAST Gozo Director. This led to a proposed masterplan for one MCAST Campus in Xewkija. However, this proposal did not materialise.

In summer 2014, under the ministerial direction of Minister Evarist Bartolo, the two MCAST Gozo Centres were relocated to our present site in Għajnsielem; formerly housing the Wistin Camilleri School of Arts and Craft. This marked yet another important milestone. In fact, as from the start of academic year 2014-2015, all MCAST operations in Gozo have been conducted from one site, the new MCAST Gozo Campus. The new campus not only solved the logistic problems emanating from operating from a split-site but also represented a considerable improvement in facilities and in the students’ learning environment. The improved facilities and setup put MCAST in a better position to accomplish its role of further and higher educational college as well as to fulfil its role of community college for re-skilling and up-skilling the Gozitan community in general. Over the past years, the location of the campus also attracted a number of Malta-resident students hailing from northern localities in Malta to pursue their vocational and professional education and training at the Gozo Campus rather than at Paola.

Despite its relatively small size in comparison to the MCAST Malta-based Institutes, the MCAST Gozo Campus has often been an important contributor or even a protagonist in College-wide and even wider-scale initiatives. Today, students at secondary level are able to choose from a wide range of vocational and applied vocational subjects at SEC/SEAC level, the assessment of which reflects the assessment structures and methodologies developed by MCAST over the years.

Few people perhaps remember that the very first vocational subjects in a secondary school in recent years were actually the result of a pilot project led by the Ministry for Education, and conducted between MCAST Gozo and the Gozo College Secondary School. This pilot project, which started in 2013, saw the introduction of a number of engineering units in the Secondary School Core Curriculum Programme. Students who participated in this project, starting from their Year 9, were awarded an MQF Level 1 certificate at the end of their secondary school phase. This pilot project initiative served as a testbed and contributed to the wider reforms which saw the introduction of vocational subjects in secondary schools at a national level and related initiatives, including the MCAST Partner School Projects with many college networks across Malta and Gozo.

The past years have seen yet a further increase in the number of courses offered at the Gozo Campus, particularly at higher levels and in sync with the country’s economic and labour market developments. In 2013-2014, in sync with the government’s free childcare initiatives, we launched the MCAST-BTEC National Diploma in Children’s Play, Learning and Development. In 2015-2016, the Gozo Campus had the first intake of foreign students taking vocational training in Gozo. Two groups of Ukrainian and Kazakh students started training programmes at the Gozo Campus in February 2016. One of the groups was enrolled in the Diploma in Electrical Installations (Buildings and Structures), while the other group started an intensive English language training programme as an essential pre-requisite for subsequent technical training at MCAST Paola. In 2016-2017, a new (Level 5) Higher Diploma for Accounting Technicians was launched at the Gozo Campus, concurrently with the MCAST IBMC. In 2017-2018, to complement the developments in the health sector taking place in Gozo, the Advanced Diploma in Health Sciences was launched, offering a career pathway for prospective students wishing to pursue a career in health, including in nursing.

The academic year 2018-2019 marked another first for the MCAST Gozo Campus. In fact, in October 2018 the College launched the first MCAST degree programme ever running on a full-time basis at the Gozo Campus – the Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Inclusive Education – with an initial intake of 10 full-time students. The first two years of this degree programme, equivalent to the Level 5 Higher Diploma part, were offered in Gozo, while for the last year the students joined their peers at the Institute of Community Services at Paola.

Concurrently, the same degree programme, in its entirety, was also launched on a part-time basis for Learning Support Educators already in employment. 81 LSEs were enrolled in this degree part-time programme in Gozo in its first intake. A year later, in October 2019, the MCAST Gozo Campus launched two other prestigious courses – the ACCA qualification, an internationally recognised qualification which leads to the acquisition of the accountancy warrant to practice as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in Malta, and the Level 5 Higher Diploma in Advanced Studies in the Early Years, at the end of which, successful students could optionally do a top-up year at the University of Malta to obtain a degree.  Eventually, the latter was elevated to a bachelor’s degree in Early Years, delivered entirely at the MCAST Gozo Campus. December 2024 marked yet another important milestone with the first-ever Gozo Campus graduation ceremony to confer degrees on students completing Bachelor’s degree programmes delivered totally at the Gozo Campus.

 

Undoubtedly, MCAST has evolved into a success story in Gozo as in Malta. Year after year, the Centre has gradually expanded its course provision in Gozo and the student population is steadily in the region of 230 full-time students, a number which reflects Gozo’s demography. MCAST training programmes delivered in Gozo fulfil the same quality assurance standards that are applicable to the same programmes delivered at the respective MCAST Institute in Malta. This ensures that Gozitan students benefit from the same quality of service that is available to their Maltese peers at the Malta-based Institutes, on their own home ground.

Over the past years, we have endeavoured to provide an enriching learning experience to our students, through work placements and apprenticeships as well as through participation in EU programmes. Several students have benefitted from such initiatives. The first MCAST Gozo students to benefit from an industrial work placement overseas go back to summer 2004, when a group of IT students took an industrial placement under the then Leonardo Da Vinci (LdV) programme in Ireland. Since then, several MCAST Gozo students and staff participated in a number of Comenius, Erasmus+ school projects and Erasmus+ placement mobilities in educational institutions and industrial settings all over Europe.

Ultimately, the success of the MCAST Gozo Campus has become synonymous with the successes of its students and alumni. MCAST has left its mark on the lives of thousands of individual young people who chose our College to further their studies in the past years. MCAST has indeed made a difference in the lives of many of these young Gozitans. Choosing MCAST was indeed an investment for promising students who today have become entrepreneurs, after conceptualising and implementing their own business start-ups and going on to employ other people as their business activity expanded.  We have certainly also made a difference to students who joined us without any formal qualifications.  MCAST has given them the required skills and competencies to become responsible citizens who are gainfully employed and thereby contributing to our economy and society at large. Most of these students are now employed in sectors related to their area of study. Some of these students have even made it all the way up to a bachelor’s degree and beyond! For all of our alumni, MCAST has provided an enriched learning experience and an investment for their future.

Our students’ success is also testament to the quality, commitment and dedication of our staff. I wish to spare a few words to pay tribute to the contribution of all persons, in their various roles – academic, administrative, technical and support personnel – who formed part of the MCAST Gozo team during these years. I had the opportunity to work with a formidable team, through which these milestones could be achieved. Over the years, the team grew in numbers, quality, expertise and personality. After almost twenty years, in 2021, a Deputy Director, Dr Robert Vella was appointed, and this continued to strengthen the team in the accomplishment of our mission. Today, we have a mix of highly dedicated individuals, who collectively continue to make MCAST a success story in Gozo.

 

Undoubtedly, every alumnus has their own story and the Gozo Campus is proud of its student success stories. We have truly kept the student at the heart of everything that we do. We are committed to continue to do so in the years to come. The future looks certainly exciting for the MCAST Gozo community and its prospective students who will join us in the years to come.