Strike: Why Medical Students Should Be Exempted From The Ongoing Academic Strike
Students studying Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) or Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) should be exempted from the ongoing academic strike.
Students of Public varsities have been at home due to the ongoing academic strike of which most of the medical and dental students are in these universities.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) had declared and embarked on a warning strike over the inability of the Federal Government (FG) to fulfill the 2009 agreement it entered with the union.
The industrial action is over two months as the union had initially embarked on a one-month warning strike as there was no response from FG it proceeded to embark on another two-month strike which will elapse next month.
Even with the warning strike, no tangible agreement has been achieved by the two parties which means that an indefinite, total, and comprehensive strike is looming.
This strike has taken a lot from students especially medical and dental students who spend more years in school than any other students.
This set of students should be considered and exempted from the ongoing strike.
One of the reasons why they should not be affected is that there is much to cover in terms of lectures and other activities.
Students of other courses can be rushed but that is not done in medical school as you are expected to take and attend lectures at the stimulated time and hours allocated to the course.
Activities such as posting can not be compressed. If you are two spend two or four months in a department you must have to complete or else you are not eligible to sit for exams and that prolongs the year of graduation.
Another thing to consider is that the country is in shortage of doctors. The only way it can meet up is by graduating the medical students at the right time. The academic strike is not a good soil to achieve this. This is why medical students need to be exempted.
And lastly, having a life is more important than anything else. It is when you are healthy and full of life that you can do other things.
The only way this can be maintained is by having proficient medical and dental doctors which are trained in medical schools. If the medical school is shut down due to strike, this will be far from achieving it.
Medical or dental students must be considered considering the number of years they spend in school and how we are shortage of doctors in the country.
The strike should not count on them so that their academic activities can move on.
