The Medical and Dental Council (MDC) of Ghana has said it will not recognise medical degrees obtained from war ravaged Ukraine.
The Council said it had observed that since the Russia and Ukraine war started, some tertiary courses conducted in the war-torn country, including medicine and dentistry, have been converted online, a situation the Council says is ineffective for the nature of the medical and dental programme.
The Chronicle agrees with the Council’s decision and would encourage it not to heed any pressure from any quarters to relent on this bold directive.
It is true that Ukraine, Cuba and Venezuela have, over the years, been an educational haven for quality training of Ghanaian students who have sought medical education in these countries.
The MDC has, over the years, not failed to recognise and license students who return to the country with degrees from any of the above-mentioned countries, because of the credibility they have gained over the years.
It is sad that no one knows when this Ukraine and Russia madness is going to stop, but it also does not mean that, as a country, we should toy with our educational system.
The study of medicine and dentistry is different from the study of programmes in the humanities. Unlike in the humanities which involves a lot of reading and easier to be pursued online, the study of medicine is not so.
It is trite knowledge that medicine involves a lot of practical work, and one has to be present in the science laboratories to be able to grasp the practical aspect of the courses.
This is why it will be difficult to allow our students to acquire medical degrees online and expect the MDC to license them. It is unacceptable!
Though a developing country, Ghanaian graduates who travel outside to seek greener pastures have a record of gaining employment easily with their certificates, due to the trust that some countries have in our educational system, which we have built over years. So we cannot sit aloof and watch that credibility go down the drain.
Another reason we cannot allow online medicine certificates is because doing so will embolden foreign countries to look down on our certificates and also the Universities that produce the students.
The Russia-Ukraine war has already had a devastating impact on the Ghanaian economy. Prices of fuel, food and other items have skyrocketed because a chunk of the world’s fertilizer, cereal, wheat and oil come from Russia and Ukraine.
The Chronicle is of the view that if we cannot control the prices of our natural resources, food and fuel because of our lack of innovation, at least we should jealously protect the training of our high quality human resource which is an envy to the world.
We certainly have control over our educational system and we must maintain the quality.
We join the Council to encourage Ghanaians studying medicine and dentistry in Ukraine to enroll onto the government’s initiative, which is intended to help absorb them into Ghanaian universities, so that they can continue with their studies.
