A total of 439 foreign-trained medical and dental graduates have reportedly failed the assessment examination conducted by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).
The two-day assessment examination was conducted on November 23 and 24, 2022, at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.
The council’s Registrar, Dr Tijani Sanusi, disclosed this in an interview with The Punch.
He said; “24 candidates sat for the examination in dentistry, eight passed and 16 failed. 892 candidates sat for the medical examination, 469 passed and 423 failed”.
Describing the assessment examination as a global practice, Sanusi said no professional is allowed to practise in another jurisdiction without sitting for the examination.
“Even if you are a Professor of Medicine here and you have never practised in the United Kingdom or the United States, when you go in there, you subject yourself to their assessment examination.”
The MDCN assessment examination is compulsory for all foreign-trained doctors who intend to practise in Nigeria.
Commenting on the development, a public affairs analyst based in Lagos, Richard Unegbu, noted that the high rate of failure should not be taken as poor training by the foreign schools; but that the curriculum and system of training in those countries may differ widely from what we have in Nigeria.
He said; “Do not take it hook line and sinker that the student do not deserve the certificates nor that the countries have low standard of education.
“It may be how their curriculum are structured, the style of impacting knowledge which may make them think out of the box, rather than some systems that demand ‘return to sender’ – that is a situation where students are expected to state exactly what they were taught in class.
“Nigeria’s system of assessment may be quite different to the countries, therefore I urge the authorities to be more universal in assessing the foreign medical students”.