THE Health Professions Council of Zambia has with immediate effect withdrawn the approval of certificates for training programmes offered at Lusaka Apex Medical University and three other programmes at Cavendish University.
Association Rigistrar Dr Aaron Mujajati announced this at a press briefing in Lusaka today.
Dr Mujajati said that among other reasons that led to the withdrawal at Apex Medical University is that dean did not have post graduate qualifications which is against the standards of the council.
“THE Health Professions wishes to inform the general public, stakeholders and students about the withdrawal of approval certificates for training programmes which are offered by Lusaka Apex Medical University. We have withdrawn two programmes at Lusaka Apex Medical University namely; Bachelor of Science and Pharmacy and Bachelor of Science and Radiography,” Dr Mujajati said.
He said that the two institutions failed to meet compliance levels in the withdrawn programmes despite being given enough time to do so.
“We have withdrawn three programmes from Cavendish University namely; MBCHP which is Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery which is a qualification which people obtain to become doctors. We have also withdrawn the Bachelor of Science and Chemical medicine and Bachelor of Science in Public Health,” he said.
“A bit of the background is that before these programmes were withdrawn,the Health Professions Council last year did conduct compliance monitoring exercise in these facilities or in these training institutions. And at that time, these major violations were actually found the training institutions were given an opportunity to address those violations. And they were given adequate time to deal with the violations that were found then and the inspection at that time was done in October last year. And the schools were informed that at a given date, the council come back to check if they had addressed these problems. Unfortunately the ongoing compliance inspection unearthed that the schools did not do much to address these problems.”
Dr Mujajati further disclosed that for Apex Medical University, the institution had over enrolled students to 740 against five full time lecturers.
“Some of the problems if you take Lusaka Apex Medical University like the programme under pharmacy, you will find that the dean did not have post graduate qualifications which is against the standards of the council. The coordinator of the course did not have the required five years teaching experience. The institution has over enrolled students up to 740 students against five full time lecturers, four of which are not qualified to teach pharmacy. And they ha inadequate sitting capacity in the library, inadequate prescribed and recommended books, no clinical instructors available for the students and the laboratory does not meet the required standards. It’s the same if not similar picture with the programme under Bachelor of Science in radiography. The major problem there is that the dean is part time and his qualifications are unknown. And there is only one full time lecturers,” said Dr Mujajati.
Read this article from the original source: BREAKING: HPCZ Withdraws License For Training Programmes At APEX University.