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Medical students’ love-hate ties with their institutions

I refer to the recent derecognition of the Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine (Pugsom) medical programme by world-renowned Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine due to finacial matters.

This has been a knee-jerk reactions amongst Malaysians, especially parents who spend a fortune to send their children for overseas medical courses in recent times, and to add salt to the wound, many are still in the dark why such things happen in the first place?

Next, who are those involved and why? A lot of speculations going on but the truth still haunts at the back of our mind - is it the beginning of the deteriorating of our education system or the franchise of money-making universities cropping up everywhere to enrich the powers-that-be.

All of us could remember the fiasco of the derecognition by Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) of the medical programme offered by Ukraine-based Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) in 2005, with the majority of the medical students comprised of the minority Indian Malaysian community who had failed to secure places in the local universities even though they had obtained grades above par of those set by the Education Ministry.

Article 12(1) of the federal constitution of Malaysia clearly points out that;

Without prejudice to the generality of Article 8, there shall be no discrimination against any

citizen on the grounds only of religion, race, descent or place of birth -

(a) in the administration of any educational institution maintained by a public authority,

and, in particular, the admission of pupils or students or the payment of fees; or

(b) in providing out of the funds of a public authority financial aid for the maintenance or

education of pupils or students in any educational institution (whether or not maintained

by a public authority and whether within or outside the federation)

What is worrisome is that the large amount of government funds being used ( a whopping RM2.3 billion) into the cost of the building the sprawling 141 acres of the Pugsom facilities based in Serdang and furthermore, adding to the figure, another RM107.91 million spent for the population of medical students (irregardless their race) comprising of only 80.

If you do the maths, that's roughly about RM1.35 million per student. Accountability goes down the drain if this return -of-investment (ROI) is not justified by the relevant authority.

Maybe that is the price that you need to pay to get a medical degree from a top-notch medical institution in Malaysia but is it worth the effort to be finally recognised by the US-based university? What will happen to the first batch of the students who have already enrolled in the programme and their future to serve Malaysian hospitals/polyclinics as qualified doctors when they are scheduled to graduate next year?

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