Agadir24

The Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, Abdellatif Miraoui, stated today, Wednesday, in Parliament, that the government has submitted its proposals regarding the various demands of medical and pharmacy students.

Miraoui stressed during his presentation at the joint meeting of the Social Sectors Committee and the Education Committee in the House of Representatives that some of the students’ demands are characterized by “lack of objectivity,” or “deviate from the goals of the participatory approach, or are at the heart of the tasks of the professors and not the students.”

Among the demands that the minister considered to be non-objective were stopping the increase in the number of new arrivals in the faculties of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry, opening university hospital centres in Agadir, Laayoune, Guelmim, Beni Mellal and Errachidia, with the start of hospital work and training within them, and giving a date for the opening of these facilities.

Among the non-objective demands of the students, according to the minister, are respecting university and official holidays during theoretical training and the examination period as well as during hospital training, granting the possibility of enrolling in open-admission institution training for the same baccalaureate in parallel with studies in medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, removing the controls related to purely theoretical theses, the possibility of taking the specialization exam directly following completing hospital training and passing the clinical exams, with the condition of discussing the thesis before the end of the specialization, and others.

Regarding the demands that the government considers to be within the purview of research professors, Miraoui stated that they include reviewing the conditions and methods of passing the entrance exam to public colleges and reviewing the selection threshold, teaching theoretical lessons to pharmacy students separately, due to the difference in the objectives of each subject between medical and pharmacy students, evaluating the student through exams that are compatible with the teaching method and setting specific elements in the choices, and unifying the curriculum of lessons between the various colleges of pharmacy in terms of organizing the components as well as the content and substance.

Regarding the demands that deviate from the goals of the participatory approach, they include, according to the same government official, the immediate and urgent resumption of work on the new system for the third cycle in studies in medicine, pharmacy and dentistry with the direct and effective involvement of the National Committee, the establishment of a national body that includes a network of deans representing professors and student representatives from the National Committee to supervise the monitoring, evaluation and harmonization of the reform of training in medicine, pharmacy and dentistry, and the annual conduct of objective and regular institutional evaluations at the level of each department in the faculties with the involvement of the Student Council or Office.

As for some points that the minister said are still pending, they include reconsidering disciplinary sanctions, amending the statement of points and replacing the zero point with the point obtained during the remedial session of the first semester, stressing that the government has committed to them on the condition of passing the exams and returning to normal study.