The Registrar of the Ghana Medical and Dental Council, Dr. Divine Banyubala, says the government’s select committee established to facilitate the integration of Ghanaian students from Ukraine into the Ghanaian educational system had given these students enough opportunities to integrate.

According to him, the committee had created enough opportunities, often extending deadlines in order to allow more students fleeing war-hit Ukraine to integrate into the Ghanaian system, however, the majority of these students had failed to do so.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Dr. Banyubala stated that they had requested the students returning from Ukraine to submit transcripts and some other documents to facilitate their integration into the Ghanaian system.

“So the first deadline for the students to submit the documents to show proof that they were actually studying medicine was 30^th of June. At the end of 30^th of June we had less than 50. So the Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Nsiah Asare, said ‘look, we wouldn’t have achieved our object. We want to see and be able to help as many that are willing and are eligible’.

“So the deadline was moved to the 31^st of July. The 31^st of July we had less than a 100 students who had met the eligibility criteria, so the deadline was moved to 8^th August as the final final deadline.

“…So 31^st of August we ended our international conference that day and I hosted an eight-person meeting with the technical committee. Then GTEC presented to us the eligible number of students for us to do what we call pre-placement assessment. They were 151 at the time,” he said.

According to him, the committee further created a portal for the 151 to fill forms to partake in the Medical school assessment exam to guide their placement into the various universities.

“So we had to design a form, open the portal – remember that this 151 were eligible but they may be willing to take advantage or they may not. So we had to deliver this so they can apply. We were supposed to close the form nominations on the ninth of September, but by the close of the Friday we had about 98 or something out of the 151.

“So we left the portal open to give them the opportunity in case they had internet problems or things like that. Eventually we closed the portal on Tuesday, but we were supposed to deliver the exam on the Friday.

“We worked through night and day … By the close of that day Tuesday we found that 121 out of the 151 indicated that they would want to continue their training in Ghana so they’ll take the exam. By the time we got to Friday the 16^th of September to start the exam, only 101 candidates showed up . So we have delivered the exam for the 101,” he said.

He noted that while some may argue that the exam was to exclude some people from accessing Medical school, the opposite was true.

He explained that “The purpose of the exam was not to exclude people, it’s to determine your knowledge and skills competency levels so that we can place you properly because the training regimes are completely different.”

The committee will be meeting soon to among other thinsg place the students in their preferred institutions.

He however, mentioned that those who had failed to take advantage of the opportunity will not have it again.

“As we speak the committee will meet soon. we have done that and we provided the opportunity for them to indicate which is your first medical school of choice and the second. So if you didn’t take the opportunity offered the doors are shut,” he said.