The College of Ilorin’s flagrant violation of the assigned admission quota for Medication and Surgical procedure (MBBS) has left near 50 graduates stranded and unable to be inducted into the medical career six months after graduating.
At the very least 44 MBBS graduates of the college are nonetheless ready and not using a date for induction or enrolment for his or her housemanship or the National Youth Service (NYSC), because the college fails to current them to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) for induction.
The MDCN approved a most of 150 because the admission quota for the MBBS programme on the college. Nonetheless, UNILORIN violated this quota and admitted over 200 college students into the programme in 2017, and is now concealing its violation from the MDCN.
The MDCN is the regulatory physique for the coaching of medical practitioners, together with medical doctors and dentists.
The physique accredits universities and allocates admissions quotas primarily based on their capability to coach medical practitioners.
After graduating from their respective universities, medical medical doctors can not follow till they’re inducted into the career by the MDCN.
Final yr, 194 medical college students at UNILORIN met the necessities for the MBBS diploma.
Nonetheless, to hide its quota violation, the college introduced solely 150 graduates to the MDCN for induction. The remaining 44 graduates have been stranded for shut to 6 months with out induction, housemanship or NYSC.
“Out of 194, 175 of us handed the examination in a single sitting, however solely 150 had been inducted, leaving 25 of us. The 14 retook the examination and handed. So altogether, 44 of us are left,” one of many affected graduates instructed PREMIUM TIMES.
In the meantime, the college has didn’t act, regardless of protests and a number of conferences between affected graduates and the college’s Faculty of Well being Sciences, a number of college students instructed our reporter.
The Provost of the Faculty of Well being Sciences, Biodun Sulyman, a professor, confirmed that the varsity violated its quota.
An announcement by the college spokesperson, Kunle Akogun, quoted Mr Sulyman as saying the college continues to be advocating with the MDCN to induct the remaining graduates, however there was no headway but.
“What occurred was that 194 college students sat for the ultimate MBBS examinations, out of whom 175 handed outrightly whereas 19 had resits,” Mr Sulyman stated, in line with the assertion.
“We approached the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) to return and induct them. However we had been reminded that they may solely induct 150, which is our accepted quota. We had been instructed to rank them, and the primary 150 of the 170 had been inducted in November final yr.”
The college additionally stated the federal government’s current announcement to extend the quota for medical college students has but to be applied. Nonetheless, this was solely introduced final yr, however UNILORIN’s violation occurred near a decade in the past.
Some college students who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES stated the violation didn’t cease in 2017, as college students admitted in 2018 exceeded 200, greater than the prevailing quota of 150.
Rating for Induction
On Friday, 14 November, UNILORIN inducted 150 medical doctors into the career, and the vice-chancellor, Wahab Egbewole, a professor, described them because the ‘golden set’.
To pick the inducted graduates, the college ranked them and chosen the highest 150, an unprecedented transfer that infuriated the graduates.
When the plans to rank them had been first unveiled in October, your complete class started writing a petition towards the varsity, however quickly withdrew it out of concern of victimisation, one other affected graduate instructed this newspaper.
“The category withdrew the petition in order that they don’t go down with us,” the graduate, who didn’t need to be named, instructed our reporter. “The varsity has pulled a quick one on us.”
The scholars decried {that a} six-year course, which became an eight-year programme because of industrial actions by the Educational Workers Union of Universities (ASUU) and the COVID-19 pandemic, is now being additional elongated.
Failed promise
Per week after the induction, a number of the graduates met with the provost of the Faculty of Well being Sciences, Mr Sulyman, a professor, to register their discontent.
Mr Sulyman promised them he would talk about it with the MDCN and that their induction can be in six to eight weeks, one graduate stated.
“After we calculated six to eight weeks, the eight weeks had been the second week of January,” the graduate stated. “We had been hoping that by the second week of January, we’d be doing our induction, and that was the final time we had a bodily assembly with the provost.”
Once they texted the provost after the eight weeks, he gave a number of excuses: “that the MDCN Registrar was not selecting up his name and that the registrar is saying our quota is an excessive amount of.”
A tradition of impunity
In the meantime, Nigerian universities routinely admit past the quotas set by skilled our bodies such because the MDCN and the Council for Authorized Training (CLE), leaving college students to bear the brunt.
Final yr, the MDCN refused to induct over 300 graduates of the School of Dentistry on the College of Calabar (UNICAL) because of the college’s admission of scholars past its allotted quota.
In 2023, the CLE, the regulatory physique for legislation schooling in Nigeria, imposed a five-year ban on the admission of scholars to the legislation college of Baze College, citing a breach of strict admission guidelines.
The Director-Common, Nigerian Regulation Faculty (NLS), Isa Chiroma, a professor, famous on the time that the college had constantly exceeded its admission quota, with the school now having a backlog of over 347 college students ready to be admitted into the Nigerian Regulation Faculty.
