The Sri Lanka Medical Council has informed President Mahinda Rajapaksa that they have a problem in recognising the medical degree awarded by the Rajarata Medical Faculty as it lacks the human and physical resources needed to train the students.
The Council’s registrar Dr. N.J. Nonis said that there were no proper facilities at the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital to provide clinical training to the 526 medical students of Rajarata University.
He said that this would affect the quality of the degree awarded by the University.
However, University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman, Prof. Gamini Samaranayake, said that the government had been compelled to open the medical faculty at Rajarata University in 2006 because of the crisis in the marking of the Advanced Level Chemistry paper.
“We usually take 955 students into the medical faculties. But we had to take in an additional 199 students in 2006 because of the Chemistry paper crisis. The other medical faculties were reluctant to accommodate them. The additional students did not like to go to the Jaffna Medical Faculty. So we had to open a new faculty, even with minimal resources, at Rajarata,” he said.
Prof. Samaranayake said that there were various shortcomings at the Eastern and Jaffna Universities’ medical faculties too, but that nobody mentioned them.
“We have to send a batch of 50 students to the Eastern Medical Faculty. Yet, Sinhala and Muslim students are not willing to go there. Nobody mentions these problems,” he said.
He said: “Some people think that medical faculties should be established only in Colombo and Kandy. They don’t like such faculties being set up in Anuradhapura.”
The UGC chairman said the medical faculties at Sri Jayawardanepura and Kelaniya had also been started with minimal facilities.
“The Rajarata Medical Faculty is only three years old -- and yet to produce doctors. These critics can’t be patient till a medical graduate passes out from the university,” he said.
-DailyMirror
The Council’s registrar Dr. N.J. Nonis said that there were no proper facilities at the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital to provide clinical training to the 526 medical students of Rajarata University.
He said that this would affect the quality of the degree awarded by the University.
However, University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman, Prof. Gamini Samaranayake, said that the government had been compelled to open the medical faculty at Rajarata University in 2006 because of the crisis in the marking of the Advanced Level Chemistry paper.
“We usually take 955 students into the medical faculties. But we had to take in an additional 199 students in 2006 because of the Chemistry paper crisis. The other medical faculties were reluctant to accommodate them. The additional students did not like to go to the Jaffna Medical Faculty. So we had to open a new faculty, even with minimal resources, at Rajarata,” he said.
Prof. Samaranayake said that there were various shortcomings at the Eastern and Jaffna Universities’ medical faculties too, but that nobody mentioned them.
“We have to send a batch of 50 students to the Eastern Medical Faculty. Yet, Sinhala and Muslim students are not willing to go there. Nobody mentions these problems,” he said.
He said: “Some people think that medical faculties should be established only in Colombo and Kandy. They don’t like such faculties being set up in Anuradhapura.”
The UGC chairman said the medical faculties at Sri Jayawardanepura and Kelaniya had also been started with minimal facilities.
“The Rajarata Medical Faculty is only three years old -- and yet to produce doctors. These critics can’t be patient till a medical graduate passes out from the university,” he said.
-DailyMirror
