The National Universities Commission (NUC) has developed a new Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards for training of doctors in Nigerian universities.
According to the commission, medical programmes will now take a duration of 7 years.
This was disclosed by the Executive Secretary of NUC, Professor Julius Okojie, during a three-day capacity development programme for staff of medical schools in Nigerian universities.
He said the new benchmark minimum academic standard was competency-based and would substantially address most of the challenges faced by the institutions in the training of doctors in the country.
In his words, "The curriculum review was necessitated by the fact that the frontier of knowledge in all academic disciplines had been advancing with new information generated as a result of research.
Other compelling reasons included the need to update the standard and relevance of university education in the country as well as to integrate entrepreneurial studies as essential new platforms that would guarantee all graduates from Nigerian universities the knowledge of appropriate skills, competences and dispositions that would make them globally competitive and capable of contributing meaningfully to Nigeria’s socio-economic development."
