Deputy Spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Yaw Opoku Mensah has said government cannot compromise the medical and dental standards for medical students in Ukraine who have been affected by Russia’s annexation.

Ukraine is among the countries such as Cuba and Venezuela which have become attractive to Ghanaian youth seeking careers in the medical field.

The war-stricken country has now converted some of its studies to online training for students, a decision the Medical and Dental Council of Ghana says is ineffective for the nature of the medical and dental programmes.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse, Tuesday, Yaw Opoku Mensah explained that although government understands the effect of the war on Ghanaian medical students, it is necessary to ensure quality standards among the doctors to be churned out.

“Nobody wants to compromise on quality. The standards are set out, the criteria are met that is why it is important that we do determine the level of every prospective student within that category so that we can still maintain the quality and the standard that we are all looking for. The standards cannot be compromised on the basis that I am coming from a war tone country so therefore, we need to lower the standards for everybody. That is not what we do in this country,” he explained.

He noted that government will still maintain the status quo in admitting medical students who were studying in Ukraine.

JoyNews understands that a meeting has been scheduled on Wednesday, September 28 with respect to the absorption of the medical students who were studying in Ukraine prior to the war.

Stakeholders expected to be at the meeting include; the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, the Ministry of Health, the Medical and Dental Council, Students Representative Council, the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, Vice Chancellors of Medical Schools and other stakeholders.

Mr. Opoku Mensah said the government has already begun steps to admit some Ukraine students into the various public universities.

"What the process just means is to determine the level whether if you are the first year, second year, third year or a final year so that we can rightfully place the individuals at their rightful class so that we can have a smooth system running and that is where the process has gotten into. It was an opportunity given to all prospective students from Ukraine to be integrated into our system and continue education,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Medical and Dental Council has cautioned that it will not recognise degrees that will be obtained by medical students through Ukraine's online platform.

“We will not honour or recognise certificates acquired by trainees using the online training module,” Registrar for the Medical and Dental Council, Dr Divine Ndonbi Banyubala said on Joy FM.