The resolution of the Association of Provosts of Colleges of Medicine (APCOM) to impose professional fees on students undergoing medical training in public universities is causing unrest at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife, Osun State.
OAU medical students have protested against APCOM’s recommendation, vowing to resist the school management’s move to impose the fees on them.
This is coming barely two months after the management of the University of Ibadan (UI) implemented the resolution, which stirred controversy and mass protests by its medical students.
The resolution, medical students said, transferred the government’s responsibility of providing facilities for quality medical training in public-owned institutions to them. They wondered why the association want students to bear the cost of their professional training, which is supposed to be provided free of charge.
At the annual APCOM meeting last September, provosts of public-owned medical colleges unanimously agreed that there was the need to save government-owned medical colleges from collapse by initiating the payment of professional training fees to prevent the colleges from losing their accreditation.
The association approved N75,000 for students in 200 to 300-Levels, and N85,000 for students in 400 to 600-Levels. The professional fees, the association said, must be paid with school fees in every academic session by medical students in all government-owned institutions.
Last week, when the OAU management reminded medical and dental students of the payment, the announcement was greeted with a protest.
At a meeting between OAU College of Health Sciences principal officers and the medical students’ representatives, the Provost, Prof T.K. Ijadunola, explained the reason for the implementation of the policy.
The provost said: “The professional fees introduced are not exclusive to OAU. They are to be paid by all medical students in all Federal Government-owned schools. Fatigue is beginning to set in for government-owned schools because of inadequate funding. It is high time students and parents began to have a say in the medical training by putting their money where their mouth is.”
Prof Ijadunola disclosed that the OAU medical college owed external examiners employed to grade the knowledge of the students, adding that workers of the school at various times contributed personal money to buy equipment and materials for practice in the laboratory.
The provost implored the students’ representatives to prevail on their colleagues to pay the proposed levies in order to give them the best training.
A teacher of Oral and Surgery, S.B. Aregbesola, told CAMPUSLIFE that the professional fees were inevitable, following the challenges of funding faced by medical colleges. He said students must face the reality that the professional training would not be provided free by the school, adding that every student would have to pay personally or be catered for through scholarship. Read more