NCOC urged to reopen medical colleges

PESHAWAR: The principal a private school of medicine has asked the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) to take measures for reopening medical and dental colleges so that the students could learn from the pandemic.

In a letter, Prof Dr Nurul Iman, principal, Northwest School of Medicine, said the medical institutions were closed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the light of instructions from the NCOC, Higher Education Department and Khyber Medical University. He said that the online teaching was taking place as per the policy in vogue. The principal said keeping in view the sensitivity of the issue, this point was placed on agenda in the Academic Council meeting of the Northwest School of Medicine, on April 21.

The council unanimously agreed to place a request for resumption of onsite training to KMU/ NCOC after Eid holidays. Dr Nurul Iman said they have not received anything from KMU in response to their request. He believed that exposure of medical students to emergencies, epidemics, pandemic and such eventualities was part of their professional training and the closure of institutions was depriving the medical students of learning/training opportunities.

The principal said that online teaching could never be a proper alternative medium to physical classes.He said that unavailability of Wi-Fi in remote areas, electricity discontinuity and lack of other relevant logistics problems had made online teaching difficult. Dr Nurul Iman said further closure of medical schools/colleges would undermine the academic sessions and the ability of the students to learn. “There seems no end to this Covid-19 pandemic and it is likely to continue,” he added.

He pointed out that it would be a great service to the country if the medical students were enabled to learn from the current pandemic. “It is estimated that there are around 75,000 medical students and they are sensible to follow the standard operating procedures|”, he concluded.