Dear Students of the London College of Arts Malta,
This page is designed to hold all the institutional policies of LCA for easy reference of the students and alumni. These are being updated regularly, so if you are ever not sure, please send an email to [email protected] requesting a set of updated policies. This service is only for our students.
Regards
LCA Administration
Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy
1 Introduction
1.1 Bribery and corruption remain a major issue across all businesses and the education sector must be away from this for all the right reasons. If bribery occurs anywhere in our business, it will affect our business poorly.
1.2 Involvement in bribery and corruption exposes LCA and relevant individuals to a criminal offence. It will also damage our reputation and the confidence of our customers, suppliers and business partners (stakeholders).
1.3 LCA’s position is simple: the Company conducts its business to the highest legal and ethical standards. The Company will not be party to corruption or bribery in any form. Such acts would damage the Company’s reputation and expose the Company, and its employees and representatives, to the risk of fines and imprisonment. If at any point you are unsure about whether a particular act constitutes bribery or if the question around whether something is an act of bribery flags in your mind, you should raise it with the Director or the HR department.
1.4 LCA runs its business with integrity and in an honest and ethical manner. All of us must work together to ensure that our business remains untainted by bribery or corruption. This policy is a crucial element of that effort and is the personal responsibility of the Director, it has the full support of the Company’s board, and it is the Director’s commitment to make sure it is followed. However, the policy needs the full support of you, our staff, to make it work.
1.5 This policy sets out the steps all of us must take to prevent bribery and corruption in LCA’s business in order to comply with relevant legislation and the LCA’s requirements. It does not form part of any employee’s contract of employment and we may amend it at any time.
What are bribery and corruption?
A ‘bribe’ is a financial or other advantage offered, promised, requested or given to induce a person to perform a relevant function or activity improperly, or to reward them for doing so. In this context, a ‘financial or other advantage’ is likely to include cash or cash equivalent, gifts, hospitality and entertainment, services, loans, preferential treatment in a tendering process, discounts etc. The timing of the bribe is irrelevant and payments made after the relevant event will still be caught, as will bribes that are given or received unknowingly. It is not necessary for the individual or Organisation actually to receive any benefit as a result of the bribe.
‘Bribery’ includes offering, promising, giving, accepting or seeking a bribe.
‘Corruption’ is the misuse of office or power for private gain.
All forms of bribery and corruption are strictly prohibited. This means that no person must:
give or offer any payment, gift, hospitality or other benefit in the expectation that a business advantage will be received, or to reward any business received;
accept any offer from a third party that you know or suspect is made with the expectation that we will provide a business or personal advantage for them or anyone else (an example being an offer from a parent in exchange for better test results for their child); and
Give or offer any payment (sometimes known as a ‘facilitation payment’) to a government official in any country to facilitate or speed up a routine or necessary procedure.
No person must threaten or retaliate against another person who has refused to offer or accept a bribe or who has raised concerns about possible bribery or corruption.
It does not matter whether the bribery occurs in the Malta or Abroad. A corrupt act committed abroad may well result in a prosecution in the Malta. Nor does it matter whether the act is done directly or indirectly.
Who can be involved in bribery and in what circumstances?
Bribery and corruption may be committed by anyone working for us or on behalf in any capacity, such as our employees, officers or directors, anyone they authorize to do things on their behalf, our representatives and other third parties who act on our behalf, our suppliers and even our customers.
The provisions of this policy therefore apply to all those listed in paragraph 3.1 above.
Bribery can occur in both the public and private sectors. The person receiving the bribe is usually in a position to influence the award or the progress of business, often a government or other public official.
4 The legal position on bribery and corruption
4.1 Bribery and corruption are criminal offences in most countries where we do business.
Who is responsible for this policy?
5.1 The Director of LCA has overall responsibility for this policy cross LCA. The Academic Manager and faculty members have responsibility for it in their departments.
6 Gifts and hospitality
6.1 We forbid any of our staff from soliciting any gift or hospitality in the course of their work for us.
6.2 We also forbid any of our staff from offering or receiving from any person or Organisation who has had, has or may have any influence over our business any gift or hospitality which is unduly lavish or extravagant or otherwise inappropriate, or which could be seen as an inducement or reward for any preferential treatment. We regard the following to be inappropriate (the list is not exhaustive):
6.2.1 a personal or corporate gift to a value in excess of 100 Euros;
6.2.2 hospitality to a value in excess of 100 Euros;
6.2.3 any gift that includes cash or a cash equivalent (such as vouchers);
6.2.4 any gift or hospitality given or received in secret; and 6.2.5 any gift or hospitality given or received in your name rather than our name.
7 Records
7.1 It is essential that we keep full and accurate records of all our financial dealings. Transparency is vital; false or misleading records could be very damaging to us. Under money laundering regulations our lawyers and accountants are obliged to report anything which appears to be irregular.
7.2 You must therefore declare and properly record (in writing) all hospitality and gifts given or received. You must also submit all expenses claims relating to hospitality, gifts or payments to third parties in accordance with our prevailing expenses policy and procedure and properly record the reason for the expenditure.
7.3 All accounts, invoices, credit notes, purchase orders and other records relating to dealing with third parties (including suppliers and customers) must be properly prepared in accordance with our prevailing practices and requirements and with accuracy and completeness. No account may be kept ‘off book’.
Monitoring
8.1 The Director of LCA will monitor the policy regularly to make sure it is being adhered to.
9 What to do if you think something is wrong
9.1 Each of us has a responsibility to speak out if we discover anything corrupt or otherwise improper occurring in relation to the business. If you are offered a bribe, or are asked to make one, or if you discover or suspect that any bribery or corruption has occurred or may occur, you must report it in accordance with the procedure set out in our Whistleblowing Policy as soon as possible. You can do this anonymously. You must make your report as soon as reasonably practicable and you may be required to explain any delays.
10 Compliance with this policy
10.1 The Company takes compliance with this policy very seriously. Failure to comply puts both individuals and LCA at risk.
10.2 Individuals may commit a criminal offence if they fail to comply with this policy. The criminal law relating to bribery and corruption carries severe penalties.
10.3 Because of the importance of this policy, failure to comply with any requirement of it may lead to disciplinary action under our procedures, and this action may result in dismissal for gross misconduct. Any non-employee who breaches this policy is liable to have their contract terminated with immediate effect.
10.4 If you are in doubt about anything in this policy, do not hesitate to contact the Academic Manager or Executive Director.
Equality and Diversity Policy
The purpose of the Equality and Diversity Policy is to support all students and staff of LCA to provide and experience a safe, inclusive, and equitable study and work environment that enables all people to reach their potential. This policy sets out the LCA commitment to promote equal opportunities and work and to prevent any unlawful or unfair discrimination and harassment in place of work and study.
This policy applies to all LONDON COLLEGE OF ARTS MALTA staff and students at different stages e.g., admission, learning or assessment.
Equal Opportunities: LCA upholds the principle of inclusivity and fairness. In this regard, LCA endeavors to provide equal opportunities irrespective of gender, marital status, family responsibilities, physical abilities, sexual orientation, political or religious beliefs. LCA adopts a zero-tolerance approach to any discriminatory or intimidating behavior and strives to provide the right environment conducive to learning and working in the most ethical manner.
Equality and Diversity: LCA values and celebrates diversity, seeing this as critical to achieving strategic aims and long-term success. LCA works to recruit and develop employees and students from a wide range of backgrounds and promote an inclusive culture where LCA:
- Provides a supportive and inclusive learning, working and social environment where everyone feels that they are valued and can work to achieve their potential;
- Offers opportunities that are open to everyone, and decisions are based on merit and are free from bias;
- Works to make sure that all students, employees, and visitors, as well as anyone who applies or wants to apply to work or study with LCA, are treated fairly and with dignity and respect, and do not face discrimination.
- Committed to providing equality for everyone, regardless of:
- Age;
- Physical ability;
- Ethnicity (including race, color, and nationality);
- Sex; o Gender reassignment; o Religion or belief; o Sexual orientation;
- Marriage and civil partnership; and Pregnancy and/or maternity
LCA commits to:
- Value diversity and promote equal opportunities for everyone; ü Promote respect and encourage good relations within and between groups; ü Aim to meet the different needs of different groups, as appropriate; ü Promote an inclusive and harmonious place of work and study where people respect others and where harassment and bullying, intimidation and violence are not tolerated;
- Prevent unlawful discrimination and victimization; ü Take seriously and deal with situations where anyone has broken this policy; ü Regularly review this policy and the relevant policies that are linked to it; ü Through the report, LCA will formally assess and report on the progress of equality commitments each year; and ü LCA will take action, when possible, inequality or discrimination is identified.
Responsibilities: The Director has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the LCA meets the commitments detailed within this policy. LCA Management have responsibility for:
- Overseeing, steering, and monitoring the LCA’s activities on equality and diversity. ü Keeping up to date with relevant legislation. ü Ensuring equalities considerations are embedded throughout their operations and decisions.
Management is responsible for:
- Providing visible leadership on equality and diversity. ü Promoting equality and diversity throughout the operational activities in their area.
- Ensuring that staff and students are aware of their responsibilities and understand and apply this policy.
- Ensuring that materials used to deliver the curriculum are accessible to all students and that they are free from sexist, racist and other discriminatory assumptions, images, and languages, unless they are being studied as examples of such.
- Ensuring that research undertaken by the LCA does not contravene this policy.
Faculty Members are responsible for:
- Promoting equality and diversity through their teaching and through relations with students and staff.
- Ensuring that their teaching approach and attitude help students to understand and value equality and diversity.
- Ensuring that research undertaken during a study program does not contravene this policy.
Breaches of this policy:
- Staff who have concerns about unlawful discrimination, harassment or bullying are advised to contact the Student Relations Team.
Students who have concerns about unlawful discrimination, harassment or bullying are advised to contact their Faculty or Student Relations Team
Extenuating Circumstances Policy
LCA defines extenuating circumstances as: ‘…circumstances, normally exceptional and outside the control of the student, which have prevented them from performing in assessment at the level expected or required of them or from undertaking the assessment.’
Who can Apply: All students who are studying for a qualification awarded by LCA can apply for extenuating circumstances. This comprises undergraduate and postgraduate students who are registered on taught programs or taught elements of research programs.
Health and Safety Policy
LCA Malta recognizes and accepts its health and safety duties for providing a safe and healthy working environment (as far as is reasonably practicable) for all staff, students and other visitors to its premises under the Health and Safety Authority Act (Malta). This policy ensures that all members of the LCA community fully understand its commitment to providing a safe and healthy environment, as well as understanding the individual responsibilities of all to uphold this.
Intellectual Property and Copyright Policy
© 2025 London College of Arts Malta. All Rights Reserved.
Please note that:
- All course materials, text, graphics, logos, and images are the property of London College of Arts Malta are protected under Intellectual property and copyright
- Unauthorized copying, distribution, or reproduction of our syllabus, layout or website content is strictly prohibited
- Any content – video, PDF or others accessible on the dilton.io portal where students access their business, tech, or design coursework, all educational materials and proprietary and owned by London College of Arts Malta.
- Downloadable brochures, application forms, or course prospectus PDFs on the website, all our protected by our copyright and are Intellectual property of London College of Arts Malta.
- Unlawful distribution of the above is prohibited and punishable by law.
- If you are unsure we encourage you to write to us on [email protected] to reconfirm with the team first.
IT Resource Policy
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of the information technology (IT) resources within LCA, and how these are used and managed. This also provides the policy outlining LCA’s guidelines for using the organization’s IT resources, including internet services, network and equipment. It covers appropriate and inappropriate use of IT resources, including acceptable use of social media. This ensures that all staff work to avoid inappropriate or illegal use that creates legal or reputational risks for LCA.
This policy applies to all employees, contractors, students and visitors who use the IT resources.
IQA
The IQA Document contains the Quality Assurance Element of the LCA Malta.
Please download
Malpractice Policy
LCA Malta defines Academic Misconduct as malpractice committed by a student during the course of any assessment, in controlled environments or coursework.
All work submitted for an assessment must be the student’s own work. It is an offence for any student to be guilty of, or party to, collusion, plagiarism, or any other act which may mislead the examiners and moderators about the development and authorship of work presented in assessments. This includes misleading examiners and moderators about the sources of information included in an assessment. All academic writing must fully acknowledge all sources of information used in preparing the work being submitted. This includes acknowledging all written and electronic sources. For all qualifications awarded at LCA, it is expected that students will use Harvard-style referencing standards.
Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.
Reasonable Adjustments and Special Considerations
The Reasonable Adjustment and Special Consideration policy aims to support those who require additional support during the examinations (pre-assessment special considerations) or whose performance is affected by extenuating circumstances (post-assessment special considerations) such as illness during, or immediately prior to the examination / test / assessment. Student is responsible is to inform LCA at the time of enrollment i.e. while registering, of their additional needs to enable adequate adjustments to be made to the assessment process. This will give LCA and its team a sense on how better we can serve the students need.
Social Media Policy
Social Media Policy applies to all the students, staff, faculty and marketing team at LCA. Social media which is the use of popular apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others; is today one of the best and quickest options to reach out to vast audiences, get your message out via advertising, co- branding or guest blogging with influencers. Basically create a voice and make it heard. Whilst it is a blessing to have such power; one needs to be wary of its pitfalls should it be used negatively. Please follow the policies below before positing any social media posts or ads related to or involving or speaking on behalf of LCA
Staff and Faculty Code of Conduct
The policy is designed for communication of expected behavior of the faculty and staff at LCA. The policy highlights the accepted and unacceptable code of conduct. Faculty members are the lifeblood of LCA. We maintain our faculty in high regard. We expect them to always be ahead of their game in terms of knowledge and readings to be able to contribute to the teaching sessions.
Student Complaint Policy
STUDENT COMPLAINT AND APPEAL POLICY
Academic Complaint: Assessment and Grade Related Appeal
Students have a right to appeal against the grades they have been allotted by their faculty member. The purpose of this appeal is to reconsider the decision of modifying the grades. The student can do so if they strongly believe that:
- The Assessment has not been prepared fairly and the information provided was inaccurate or incomplete thus disadvantaging the student
- The teacher has used personal bias in grading the student
- The assessment was not designed keeping in mind the special needs of the student which was disclosed / shared at the time of enrolment.
Stage 1 The student is advised to as a first step, very informally, check with the faculty member as to why a certain grade has been issued and give the faculty the opportunity to explain. The student if not satisfied with the explanation, has the option to write a formal request appealing the grade to Academic Manager.
Stage 2 In the written request, the student is requested to include the course title, unit title, faculty name, grade received, date, the conclusion from the meeting with the tutor and the specific reason(s) for appealing the grade. This should be filed within 5 calendar days of the release of the grade.
In this stage, the Academic Manager and his/her team will conduct necessary background check on the request and arrange a meeting with the faculty member to get formal feedback on the assessment in question, against which the grade appeal is filed. Feedback will be prepared of the findings and communicated to the student.
Appeal of the decision- Should the student be still unsatisfied, he/she may appeal / request to raise it to an external verification. The same assessment will be graded by a 3rd party trainer not related to this case or known to both the parties. Their grade issued will be considered the final grade.
A formal written request for grade appeals must be submitted no later than 5 calendar days after grades have been reported by the administration. There would be a fee involved for the process which would be refunded if the complaint raised was accurate.
Non-Academic Complaints
It is normal for students to have issues which they wish to raise and these maybe of non-academic nature. In this instance, the student is encouraged to adapt two options – first the informal approach and the second If the first fails, the formal approach.
Informal Resolution: The student must approach the Student Services and Relationship Department and meet one of the representatives. The respective officers are well trained to understand that issue and give some suggestions on how to handle it. They will listen to the concern and if it’s regarding a staff or another faculty member, they will choose to speak to them and understand better with a view to close this informally. The student would also be encouraged to connect on an informal level with the person in question, and request closure between them.
Formal complaint: In an event the student fails to get a satisfactory closure through the informal process, they would be asked to file a formal complaint to LCA. The formal complaint of Non-Academic complaint would go to the Academic Managers’ office if it is regarding a faculty member or a non-academic procedure related issue. IF the complaint is about a member of staff, then the complaint would be raised to the Human Resources. If the complaint is about the Academic Manager, then the complaint would be escalated to the Directors’ office. If it’s about the Director, then it would involve a 3rd party involvement or a panel.
The Academic Managers office would be required to:
- learn the complete nature of the issue that has led to the complaint
- that the effort made during the informal addressing and why that was unsatisfactory and if an informal resolution path was not adopted what was the reason behind that
- what resolution is the student seeking to achieve
The above would all be in writing.
The Academic Manager would study the above and then conduct his/her own investigation into the matter and issue a written response to the student within 15 calendar of the complaint (at maximum 30 calendar days). The outcome in the above cases, after complete study would be:
- Dismissal of the complaint
- Mutually accepted closure of the complaint by the complainant and the defendant in form of a settlement between them
- Should the complaint be accepted as accurate, effort will be found to make redressal of the complaint
The Academic Manager will in 7 calendar days after the outcome send a formal letter to parties concerned.
Appeal of the decision
There is a chance that given the outcome, the student would not be satisfied with the same. The student has 7 calendar days to raise an appeal to the decision of the management. This appeal can be made to the Director of LCA. No appeals shall be heard if no evidence is submitted together with the appeals form, unless this is duly justified upon application. Individuals must provide substantive justification and argumentation as to why no evidence can be provided.
Within 7 calendar days the complainant must identify the matters that are yet not resolved or addressed. Any appeals filed after 7 days won’t be heard.
The matter will again go to the Academic Managers office who will determine if there is a case to be discussed or not. In case they believe there is no case, the Academic Managers office can end the Appeal procedure.
In an event there is a case, a complaint review panel is formed to take it up within 15 working days. This panel will review and make suggestions on the appeal. The panel will identify a chairperson who will be from LCA faculty or staff team and not directly connected with the student or whom the student has filed complaint against. The chairperson will head the appeal and ask the appellant to provide the complaint, all evidences and related to the review panel. This will be shared with all members for input. A hearing date will be announced and informed to all. The appellant will be permitted to attend with a friend / family member.
Any written evidences not received before the hearing will not be considered. Should the appellant not attend the hearing and not inform the review panel ahead in time, the appeal will be considered closed. In an event the appellant informs the panel ahead in time with a valid reasoning, the panel will offer a new date for hearing. The notes of the review panel will be recorded and prints released to the appellant and the parties involved.
External Review
If the complainant has exhausted the internal procedures of LCA, and is not satisfied with the outcome he/she may request that the case to be reviewed by an Independent External Reviewer. The findings of any case considered by an Independent External Reviewer shall be considered directly by the Director of LCA.
The Director of LCA shall take the recommendations of the external reviewer into account in reaching a final decision about any action that should be taken in response to the complaint. The decision of the Director of LCA is final and there shall be no further appeal against this decision.
Report and Use of Formal Complaints to the Academic Board
ü The Academic Manager shall keep a record of all formal complaints that are made. This will include formal complaints that are progressed through the Complaints Procedure and those which are
resolved informally at some stage in the Complaints Procedure. The Academic Manager shall keep a record of the types of complaints, those making complaints and how each complaint was resolved. The Academic Manager shall make an annual report, in the March of each year and present in the Executive and Academic Board meeting. The report will include:
ü The number of formal complaints lodged in the system ü The number satisfactorily addressed at Informal Stage ü The number of complaints that proceeded Formal Complaint stage ü The number proceeding to independent review.
Notes:
No anonymous complaints will be heard.
Evidence will be required for the appeal stage