Medical Students are now to spend 7 years in Nigerian Universities – says NUC

The National Universities Commission (NUC) has increased the number of years for studying medicine in Nigerian universities to seven years.

Prior to this development, the years a medical student spend before graduation is largely school-dependent with many spending as little as six years and others go on to nine years before being awarded their medical degree.

This was disclosed at a three-day capacity development programme for staff of medical schools in Nigerian universities where the Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, presented the reviewed curriculum to the stakeholders for them to brainstorm as well as fine-tune the draft document.

He stressed that the new benchmark minimum academic standard was competency-based and would substantially address most of the challenges the institutions face in training of doctors in the country. Okojie noted that those that are entrusted with people lives must be adequately trained and competent to discharge their responsibilities efficiently.

"The curriculum review was necessitated by the fact that the frontier of knowledge in all academic disciplines had been advancing with new information generated as a result of research. Other compelling reasons included the need to update the standard and relevance of university education in the country as well as to integrate entrepreneurial studies as essential new platforms that would guarantee all graduates from Nigerian universities the knowledge of appropriate skills, competences and dispositions that would make them globally competitive and capable of contributing meaningfully to Nigeria’s socio-economic development. We must build some good quality hospitals and make facilities available for the students who are coming out with competences and skills to work. No doctor would want to work without equipment. We are trying to look at it from the holistic view. Good learning and teaching environment, good medical centres and the management of resources."

Okojie said.