Classrooms have emptied at Zimbabwe’s National University of Science and Technology (Nust) medical school. The campus, in Bulawayo, lacks many facilities and so has not been accredited, according to Research Africa.
Two groups of Nust medical students went to complete their degrees in Zambia and Malawi after learning that they will not be recognised as doctors by the Medical and Dental Practitioners Council of Zimbabwe.
When they tried to enroll at the country’s first medical school, at the University of Zimbabwe, they were told that they had to write more than 30 exams within less than a month, according to former Nust lecturer Dumiso Matshazi
“This project has gone to waste. The Medical and Dental Associa- tion of Zimbabwe is not showing much concern about this,” said one doctor, who asked not to be identified.
Nust spokesperson Felix Moyo blamed the medical council, saying “The medical council asked us to fulfill some requirements, which we did, but each time we did this they would come back with new demands.” Most of the lecturers have left the country for more secure positions.
Nonetheless, Moyo, the Nust director of information, claimed that the medical school was still running. Moyo said staff shortages were no more severe than at Zimbabwe’s other eight public universities.
But more than a dozen 2011 vacancies in lecturing and profes- sorial positions at the Nust medical school were listed on the Zimbabwe Human Capital website.
Meanwhile, the University of Zimbabwe’s medical school in Harare, under its dean Witmore Bayayi Mujaji, is currently the sole training centre for medical doctors in the country