By Jimmy Jackson
The National Universities Commission announced on Wednesday that students studying pharmacy, physiotherapy and optometry in the university will now spend six years instead of the current five years to graduate.
It added that instead of a Bachelor’s degree, they will now be awarded Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm D); Doctor of Physiotherapy (DPT) and Optometry (O.D. Doctor of Optometry), respectively.
According to the commission, the upgrade aligns with global best practices for training professionals in those fields. It said: “As part of the changes, the duration of the affected programmes has been extended from five to six years to accommodate additional courses and clinical training.
“This quest to upgrade the status of some medicalrelated programmes from Bachelor’s Degree to Doctor (Bachelor’s Degree with clinical sessions) was borne out of the desire to incorporate more clinical/practical sessions, provide sufficient coverage of foundation courses, improve on clinical skills and cover all specialty areas.
“The trend seeks to also align with global best practices applicable in the training of professionals in these medical related programmes. “The certificates obtained from the Nigerian university system can be at par with those obtained in similar programmes from other climes.
“This will ensure the requisite harmonisation, mutuality and global competitiveness of Nigerian graduates in terms of Certificates evaluation, employability and further studies in the relevant disciplines.” However, the NUC said the Doctor of Medical Laboratory Science (DMLS) programme was not approved by the Commission.
“The Doctor of Medical Laboratory Science (DMLS) programme does not exist in the NUC’s BMAS or CCMAS and thus has not been captured as an upgraded programme. “Consequently, MLSD is not an approved programme in the offerings of any Nigerian university.”
