If the proposed 11 years training for medical students by the National Universities Commission, NUC, is anything to go by, then the health sector should be set for a shortage of medical doctors, as the duration might be discouraging and too expensive for would-be medical students to cope with, Professor Oyesoji Aremu, Deputy Director, Distance Learning Institute, DLI, and University of Ibadan, has said.
According to him, it will take an average of 29 years for an individual to be a medical student, provided he/she enters university at the age of 17.Prof. Aremu , according to a Vanguard report, said the development seems too cumbersome for students, parents, profession and the nation.
Also reacting, Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Calabar, UNICAL, Professor Florence Banku-Obi, said: “NUC just made a statement that has not been backed up by any policy. No policy or curriculum to guide them on that.” She said what the NUC could have done was to break the 11 years into two, adding that students should be given the opportunity to graduate in the first phase and continue after their first degree to read medicine.
