EGYPT: Medical school enrolments to be slashed

Although he came top of his class in this year's secondary school certificate examinations Hassan Abdel Fatah, 19, is unlikely to achieve his dream of attending medical school. An Egyptian court recently upheld a request from the Doctors' Association, an independent union, that the number of new medical students be slashed because of pressure on standards and an over-supply of doctors. In line with the ruling, the number of new enrolments at medical schools will be cut by 14%, from 7,800 to 6,700.

"This is unfair," Fatah told University World News. "It means the efforts I made to succeed with high grades and the big money spent by my family on private lessons in the run-up to the year-end exams have been harshly wasted."

Fatah scored 94.6% in the secondary school certificate examinations, known locally as the Thanawiya Amma. He expects the minimum grade for attending medical school at public universities to exceed 96% this year as a result of the cut in the number of new medical students.

The request by the Doctors' Association, supported by the Ministry of Higher Education which oversees university education in Egypt, has triggered controversy. Many parents dream of their children becoming doctors.

"This request [to cut the number of medical students] dismantles the principle of equal opportunities," said Ali Abdel Wahed, an ex-Deputy Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal in Cairo. "In fact, this policy protects the interests of physicians who have already graduated. But it pays no attention to the interests of high school degree holders, who have studied hard and spent lots of money in order to secure a place at medical school."

Dr Hamdy El-Sayed, who heads the Doctors' Association, said in a recent press statement that starting from 2014, Egypt would need only 3,500 new physicians annually while the nation's medical schools currently graduate about 10,500 every year.

"Admitting new students at medical schools must be based on the importance of providing them with efficient training in order to ensure high standards of performance after their graduation," said El-Sayed, who chairs the Health Committee in the lower house of Egypt's Parliament.

He added that his union and the Ministry of Health had cooperated in drafting a bill to be debated by Parliament in the near future. This will require every physician to apply for a new licence every five years, based on his or her accredited hours of practice.

El-Sayed even urged Egyptian families to encourage their children to shift their attention to other specialisations such as IT, management and human resources because the dream of being a doctor "is not the right one in the long run".

But Dr Muneer Abul Ela of the Oncology Institute at Cairo University, Egypt's most prestigious public university, disagreed: "Decreasing the numbers of medical students is not the right step to raise the standards of medical education," Abul Ela said.

"Egypt, whose population has increased to 80 million, needs more, not fewer, doctors. For example, China, whose population exceeds the billion mark, has not sought to cut the number of students studying medicine," Ela told University World News. "On the contrary, the authorities there have endeavoured to raise the levels of education and training in all fields, including medicine."

He proposed that an expected increase in taxes recently levied by the government on private education institutions be channelled into supporting the finances of public medical schools.

Murad Abdel Qader, a member of the governmental Supreme Council for Universities responsible for specifying the numbers of new students every year, admitted that Egypt's university education was hampered by a lack of financial resources, an excessive number of students and a "bad distribution" of doctors.

"Generally speaking, physicians like to work in big cities, not in remote areas," Qader said. "Each physician wants to do his governmental job in the morning and run a private clinic in the evening to earn a lot of money."

In an apparent reaction to public pressure to halt the move, Minister of Higher Education Hany Helal said the decision to reduce the number of medical students was "irreversible".

The announcement prompted high school graduates, who want to become doctors but are unlikely to be admitted into government medical schools, to scramble for places in private universities.

"But what about those who cannot afford the exorbitant fees charged by private universities?" wondered Fatah, whose wish "since childhood" has been to become a doctor. "As things stand, I think this wish will never be fulfilled."