27th August, 2012
JETHRO IBILEKE/Benin
The management of Igbinedion University (IOU), Okada, has denied the allegation that it has been deliberately frustrating its graduating medical students from registration for the Nigeria Medical and Dental Council (NMDC)’s assessment examination.
Some of the graduating medical students of the University under the umbrella of G43, had alleged that the management was frustrating their registration for the NMDC’s examination for assessment after spending nine years in the school without repeating a single class.
Provost of the College of Medicine of the University, Professor Jacob Unuigbe, said he personally took the papers of the students that were ready to Abuja on 8 August for registration. He however said some of the students had not submitted their papers.
“I submitted those that were ready. There were 39 out of 47 graduating students. After that I went for Provosts’ meeting.
“When I returned, we now prepared the rest, about seven of them. By the time we now got them ready, and early this week after the Eid-el-Fitri holiday, we dispatched the rest to Abuja. So as I talk to you now, the papers for registration for these graduating students for the NMDC assessment are now in Abuja.
“As per the doctors’ exam in Enugu, it is not directly in our hands. It is in the hands of the NMDC in Abuja. So the question of us deliberately delaying it does not arise. The problem is that once the students graduate, it is now the NMDC that undertakes the assessment of these graduates.
“When I talked to the NMDC Registrar, he said that they already had 139 graduating students who were to do the exam in Enugu this time around, and that when we finish compiling our own graduating students, he will make special arrangement, a supplementary arrangement for them either in University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) or any other venue, because those ones in Enugu may not be able to handle the whole crowd at once, that is, the additional 47.”
Prof. Unuigbe said he has continued to be in touch with the Registrar of NMDC, who he said had given assurance of his willingness to “make subsequent arrangement for them to do the exam.”
“It is not us delaying it, we don’t have control over the NMDC assessment exam,” he said.
On the allegation of the students being registered as foreign medical students, the Provost said this was as a result of the loss of accreditation of Medical School by several Nigerian Universities in 2010, including IUO. He said his university had to fight to get the accreditation restored, “and by last year, we were lucky to get the accreditation restored.”
This he said resulted in the University having far in excess of the quota of students allocated to it.
“We have very many medical students, which was resolved in such a way that if we must graduate these people up to this certain year admission set, we must assess the whole students, because of the sheer number, that is the only condition under which our accreditation was restored to us.
“The NMDC now said the students sent down now must be assessed as foreign graduates, because we have too many graduates, and we must not exceed the quota allocated to us, we are keeping to that rule. So for the next one year or so when we finish clearing the backlog of graduates, we more than our quota every year. It is because the NMDC laid down these rules. We don’t like it, we even protested that our students should not be assessed like foreign graduates, but they said no,” because, according to him, the NMDC hinges the restoration of their accreditation on the assessment of their students as foreign students.
“This is the situation, nobody is doing anything deliberate. We are still in touch with the NMDC so make sure that these doctors are not disturbed, but we do not have control over NMDC assessment. And there is no reason why we should disturb our own grandaunts. It is just that they are so much in a hurry, the want things done very quickly. We have been talking to them that we will make sure they do the exam over there, but certainly, no medical school is in charge the NMDC assessment exam,” Prof. Unuigbe said.
Also reacting, the University’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, said the students were just been mischievous and misguided.
The pact the NMDC has with us is that they have authorized us to train people in medicine. It is just like when we graduate pharmacists, we inform the Pharmacist Council, and they say okay, send them to us. And the students have to process their papers. The induction is not our own but the regulatory body. But these students, rather than wait to do this bit, not all of them do that.
According to the VC, the students have the major part of the blame, adding “if they had gotten their papers ready and the NMDC processed them, the noise about not being able to join the colleagues would not have arrived. There is mischief in the air as you can see.
“Yes, there is anxiety in the students and their parents. They think once they graduate from us, they have become doctors, but that is not all. As university, we have responsibility towards the students. Even though the NMDC takes them over after their graduation from us, we still do not leave them, that is why we continuously engage the Registrar to ensure their soft landing,” Prof. Osaghae said.