Crimea Medical University is not recognized

No to Crimea Medical U

NST Report:

Just four years after accepting its first batch of Malaysian students, the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) in Ukraine has been de-recognised by the Government.

From Jan 1 next year, the Malaysian Medical Council will not recognise students registered and admitted to medical and pre-medical courses at the university.

The Government’s main complaint:

The university lowered its entry standards to such an extent that it was accepting arts stream dropouts and academically poor science stream students. The university is alleged to have accepted students on grounds that they had passed the pre-medical examination.

But the last straw was the lack of familiarity with English among some CSMU graduates in government service.

Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) president Datuk Dr Ismail Merican said a study of CSMU graduates in the Health Ministry showed they were more familiar with Ukrainian or Russian terms.

"This medical jargon, being alien to our medical fraternity, may jeopardise patients’ safety and well-being," he told a Press conference.

Dr Ismail also announced that the Government would not recognise medical programmes offered by 10 other universities in Ukraine. They are the Lviv National Medical University, Ivano-Frankivsk State Medical University, Ternopil State Medical Academy, Dnipropetrovsk State Medical Academy, Sumy State University, Kharkiv State Medical University, Donetsk State Medical University, Zaporizhya State Medical University, Lugansk State Medical University and Odessa State Medical University.

This was because the council had doubts as to whether these institutions could provide adequate tuition in English to undergraduates. There are 294 students studying medicine in various academic years and another 69 pursuing the pre-medical course in these universities.

Dr Ismail said despite strict control over Malaysians leaving to study at the university, the Government did not have much say on the number and quality of students being admitted into the medical institutions in Ukraine.

"If we recognise these institutions, the number of unqualified students pursuing medicine will increase and compromise the quality of medical education," he said.

However, the MMC decision will not affect any of the current 1,119 undergraduates in various academic years at CSMU. Dr Ismail said those pursuing the pre-medical course would only be eligible if they were admitted and registered into the first academic year before Dec 31. He said those who registered after Dec 31 must pass the Medical Qualifying Examination stipulated under the Medical Act 1971 to be eligible for registration with the MMC. He said students would be allowed a credit transfer between two recognised medical training institutions and not between a recognised and unrecognised institution. For CSMU students, he added, only those registered during the recognition period were eligible for a credit transfer.

Dr Ismail said CSMU was given MMC recognition after a visit by a Malaysan delegation in 2001. But complaints started flowing in soon after about the poor quality of undergraduates, especially with the university’s willingness to accept students with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) well below the 4.0 required in Malaysia.

It is understood that the university even accepted those with a CGPA below 3.0.

"In Malaysia, our standards of entry are very high with even those with 10As and 13As finding it difficult to enter our medical colleges."

Acting on the complaints, MMC officials visited CSMU in 2003 to investigate and found that the intake of Malaysian students had ballooned to 900 from just 53 in 2001. Dr Ismail said the drastic increase in students would inevitably compromise the quality of education as far as teaching staff and other resources were concerned.

He said the Ukraine’s 10 other universities applied for recognition in 2003. But investigations showed that they too had questionable entry standards for students.

He said the MMC, as the custodian of the medical profession in Malaysia, would not compromise on patient safety. "We will always ensure that Malaysian medical undergraduates have the knowledge and skills to practise medicine safely," he said.

Malaysia recognises 344 medical institutions worldwide.

The de-recognition of the medical programme at the Crimea State Medical University (CSMU) in Ukraine has shocked many.

Most upset were parents of those registered for the pre-medical course in September, as the Malaysian Medical Council’s decision today only accepts pre-medical students who enter their first academic year by Dec 31 this year.

A concerned mother from Johor, who declined to be identified, said she had paid more than RM7,000 to an agent to enrol her daughter for the pre-medical course. "I checked whether the university was recognised before paying the money," she said. "We made the payment in March as places would not be available if bookings were late. The MMC should have announced its decision in February before we made our bookings."

Another parent, Mohd Sofian Ali, said he was unsure what to do as he had made preparations to send his son, Ahmad Adli, to the university in September. "I have to make a crucial decision whether to send him or not," he said.

Dr Subendran Arumugam, director of Ukrainian Medical Education Sdn Bhd, which represents CSMU in Malaysia, said the MMC’s decision was "perplexing" as it came unannounced. "We were not informed at all," he told the New Straits Times in a telephone interview from Ukraine. "We first heard about it from students but dismissed it as a rumour. Then we heard it from the Press."

Dr Subendran alleged that the MMC had not given the university a grace period for requirements they had allegedly failed to meet. On the drastic increase in Malaysian students to CSMU, which was offered as among the reasons for de-recognition, he said CSMU had simultaneously reduced the number of non-Malaysians at the university. This, he said, had ensured that the teaching staff-to-student ratio had not been compromised. He said the number of Malaysians had increased overall at the university, as each new batch brought in new students. He denied MMC president Datuk Dr Ismail Merican’s allegation that Malaysian arts students had been allowed into the university. "There is not a single Malaysian arts stream student at the university. The students coming here also have very good results."

On the alleged unfamiliarity of students with medical terms in English, he said the 25 Malaysians who had graduated so far from the university were too small a group on which to form such a judgment. "They were from the first batch of Malaysians who graduated from the university. I feel this problem can be easily tackled with students still there," he said. He said it had been made a condition two years ago that Malaysian students from CSMU perform their annual clinical training of between three to six weeks in Malaysia. This, he said, would help students become familiar with medical jargon in English by the time they graduated.

In another development, company consultant Mahfuz Abd Rahim said the company had submitted an appeal to Dr Ismail to grant exemption to 65 students joining the pre-medical course at CSMU in September.

Students at CSMU were also shocked to hear about the withdrawal of recognition and the reasons ascribed for the decision.

First-year student Previna Anatory, 19, described facilities and educational standards at the university as "very good". "The allegation that standards are low is not true. My anatomy lecturer is a Canadian graduate which proves his ability to teach in English," she said in a telephone interview.

Fourth-year student Vasini Arunudam, 24, said lecturers had to attend English courses to maintain standards. "And now that Ukraine is moving towards the European Union, courses are generally taught in English," she said.

Puvanese Rebecca Pillai Simon, 24, a first-year medical student, said some locals spoke much better English than some Malaysians did.