₦airaland Forum

isnovic:
This is sad, to note that education for grade 1 through 6 is now at minimum 400k per semester, that is 1.2million per year.

The FG should rein in on some of this excesses. Schools should be regulated and school fees should be fixed.

If you are not ready to provide the service and you are in it for the quick profit from totally dis-oriented parents then you should quit.

naptu2:
1) This kind of schools exist everywhere (go check out the school fees at Institut Le Rosey, Salisbury and other such schools).

2) It's up to parents to decide if they want to send their kids to these schools. It's up to the parent to decide if the standard of education is worth the fees that they pay.

3) There will be kids who will attend these schools and do well in life, just as there will also be kids who will attend these schools and do badly. It's the same for all schools.

4) It will be totally wrong for the government to close the schools down just because of the high school fees that they charge.

5) What the government should do is to tax these schools and use the tax to fund improvements in government owned schools (especially state and local government owned schools).

6) State internal revenue services should also investigate people who send their children to these schools to make sure that they've paid their taxes. The state revenue services should report parents with dubious sources of income to the EFCC.

helovesme:
Huh!!

What are you saying?

Eton and Harrow are private schools.

There will always be top rated public schools/academys/grammar schools but you cannot fault the quality education from the likes of Eton.

martineinstein:
U can hardly see such xpensive schools in western world

Nigeria


The P18N offshore patrol vessel (OPV) is the variant operated by the Nigerian Navy. The P18N displaces 1800 tons, is 95 m. long, has an endurance of 20 days,[25] a maximum speed of 21 knots (39 km/h)[26] and a range of 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h).[25] It has a crew of 75. Armament is reportedly a single NG-16-1 76 mm. gun with a TR47 fire-control radar, two 30 mm. guns, and two 20 mm. guns.[26] The class has an Oil Support Recovery System to combat oil spills.[27] Unlike the Type 056, the P18N has a helicopter hangar.[25]

Nigeria ordered two P18Ns from CSOC in April 2012[28] for US$42 million each.[19] The first was slated to be completed in China, with the final 50–70% of the second being completed at the Nigerian Naval Shipyard in Port Harcourt; CSOC was contracted to upgrade the shipyard to facilitate this.[28]

NNS Centenary (F91), the first P18N, was built at the Wuchang Shipyard in Wuhan. It was launched January 2014 and completed trials in October 2014.[26] Centenary left China in December 2014 and arrived in Lagos, Nigeria in February 2015;[25] it was commissioned the same month.[27] Delivery was originally expected in mid-2014.[28]

The second OPV, NNS Unity (F92), was reported in February 2015 to be undergoing outfitting at Wuchang, and was expected to be delivered in 2015.[25] Nigeria had originally expected to receive it in mid-2014 for completion at Port Harcourt.

remiiko:
if this learned man becomes the CJN it wud b a plus for us the southerners.dou he is d 2nd sha from d south.

corrigan:
NIGERIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
National officers’ committee
press release,
Wednesday 9TH march, 2016.

IMPENDING DISASTER AND COLLAPSE OF GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH SECTOR IN NIGERIA: A CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION AGAINST EXISTING AND EMERGING ABSURDITIES IN THE NATION’S HEALTH SECTOR


For almost two decades now, the nation’s health sector has been unduly traumatized and continually subjected to crippling upheavals by persons who have insisted on redefining the time hallowed and universally accepted meaning of Medicine and the Medical Profession. They have been aided by the acquiescence or collusion of some persons entrusted with power and authority to perform certain roles in the system, to foist a state of frozen conflict on the healthcare delivery system of Nigeria to the detriment of the public. Their main motivation seems to be the misguided belief that decimating the medical profession and “equalizing” medical practitioners with other health workers and professionals, will lead to the fulfilment of their ambitions to also lead the health team. They have used a combination of contrived misapplication of government policy and establishment circulars and misuse of legislations to cause unimaginable divisions, segmentation, acrimony, mischief, indiscipline and other vices in the healthcare system with attendant but avoidable injuries and deaths to unsuspecting and hapless members of the public.


The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) is highly appalled by the state of affairs in the healthcare delivery system which has been reinforced by the recent ruling of National Industrial Court. An ill-informed ruling as a result of a poor understanding of the meaning of Medicine, its ramifications and appendages, the role and rights of practitioners of Medicine and their relationship with allied healthcare professionals for the purpose of maintaining members of the public in a state of health.

Surprisingly, everybody in the health care setting have argued for a direct and unfettered access to the patient, against the standard health system practice, all in the name of autonomy. This has culminated into a voracious appetite for positions, extra roles and responsibilities cursed with a spirit of get-it-at-any cost mentality, industrial acrimony and senseless strikes became the order of the day. For NMA and her members, ethical principles were inadvertently compromised in efforts to attempt to restore normalcy to the system. Those who were in positions to take actions did little to stabilize the system or to halt the decent to anarchy. Decisions and agreements were reached based mainly on emotions, fear, half-truths, disregard for quality and excellence, ignorance and total disregard for international best practices as the authorities became impotent in the face of the looming threats and blackmail by these forces at moments of decisions, and literarily handed over their mandates to unions and professional associations.


[b]Frivolous courses and programmes with no relevance to hospital and indeed the health care industry were quickly developed, and accredited by institutions that could have first verified their usefulness to the system. In some others, the duration of training have been elongated as a way of measuring up to medical training with no added value to actual job requirement and the government compelled to commit scarce resources to funding such. The middle level manpower critical to the needs of a developing and cash strapped country like ours have been virtually eliminated even with all the hues and cries of alleviating the acute shortage of healthcare expertise among our rural poor populations. The financial burden on government became unnecessarily and excessively increased with no added value commensurate with the extra expenditures. Resources that could have been deployed in improving infrastructure/facilities to facilitate further relevant/needed training and provide commodities and consumables to guarantee better healthcare for the citizenry were used to service largely redundant and over bloated bureaucracy without the people seeing commensurate improvement in efficiency and promptness of services rendered.[/b]

The legislative process appeared to have been hijacked. Legislations were passed without fully exercising the rigorous legislative scrutiny necessary to ensure that law making remains all about entrenching order, good governance, peace, discipline and standards in the society and not to cause chaos. Arising from the seeming hijack, conflicting laws were passed against expert advice thus creating absurdities, and attempting to reverse nature and its sequence of order and hierarchy. If these absurdities were allowed to stand, it would only create undesirable and unintended disastrous consequences to both individual health seeker and the public. Public interests have been seriously compromised in favour of corruption and ego promotion.

Patriotism and conscience to promote decency and preserve the sanctity of a noble profession like medicine have been thrown overboard to deliberately or inadvertently destroy the healthcare system, thus accelerating the descent into anarchy.


Under our watch judicial pronouncements that rather than annul inordinate desires, moderate insatiable appetites and quench greed and jealousy by seeking out these absurdities further escalated the conflagration in the guise of interpreting the letters of the extant laws and not their spirit. Deep rooted enmity of a lifetime and for future generations has been created among a group of people who work and live together as a team because of these interpretations that pacified only the crying baby without asking for the reason for the lamentation. Chief Medical Directors and Medical Directors (C/MDs) were and are still being compelled to do things that further waste scarce public finances even when they know such actions complicate the system of service delivery and add no value to the system, just to please individuals and groups. Yes, when the fire of the attacks gets too hot on the ministry, it is transferred to the management of the hospitals. Confusion held sway.

Many well-trained and highly-skilled Nigerian doctors and dentists have left the shores of this country over the years because of suffocating, unhealthy, antagonistic, unproductive and acrimonious work environment in the public health sector. Else, how can one explain the situation where a professor of haematology is barred from performing tests and exercise quality assurance programs and activities in the haematology laboratory by a judicial pronouncement. Can a science laboratory technologist bar a professor of chemistry from conducting his researches and overseeing the operations of a chemistry lab? But in medicine, a consultant plastic surgeon was prevented from reviewing the wound of a patient in the ward he operated on earlier because a “consultant” nurse had given order that the wound must not be opened. Can the Nigerian sick people survive under this state of anarchy? Who would be the loser? Our experts who couldn’t stand this seeming primitive jungle-like scramble for relevance and roles are now sojourning in other countries and performing excellently well to the shame and pain of their motherland. Privileged Nigerians and other impoverished citizens sell their life savings and even family landed resources and embark on medical tourism only for them to discover that that famed world class surgeon or other medical experts are Nigerians. Asked why they are not coming back home to save their people, they will respond- the Nigerian factor, the system that has put the world on its end. For how long would this continue?

The NMA is deeply concerned for our dear and beloved country; concerned for the dead and those who die daily from these senseless pursuits for positions, role and equality. We are concerned that unless decisive actions are taken NOW to allow international best practices to take root and prime position in our approach to patient care many more avoidable deaths are in the offing, as a result of the miscarriage of unionism, impunity, ignorance and lawlessness in our

eleojo23:
There are job descriptions for every member of the health care team.
A pharmacist knows his limitation.
Even among doctors, they have limitations. That is why you have specialists.
For instance, a General practitioner and a paediatrician are both doctors but when you have a paediatric case, the GP knows that he has to allow the paediatrician handle the patient because he is not an expert in that area.

The same applies across the other medical disciplines.
The pharmacist has his area of specialization so does the doctor.

Pennywise:
Everybody wants to be a doctor withour having to go through the stiff competition and rigors that medical school entails. The pharmacists, the optometrists also recently started a 6 yr program and are now called doctors doing all kinds of things including seting iv lines in phamacies and 'optometry clinics'. I wonder what the nurses, physiotherapists and radiographers are still waiting for. Truly competent unionists perhaps?.

Pharmacists and Optometrists who left school long bf this fraudulent scheme was contrived are brandishing complimentry cards appending 'Dr' to their names. We dont know who is a real doctor anymore n Nigeria.

Pharmacists have since abdicated their roles in the health sector to traders and are now looking for fertile grounds by corrupting an allied profession. Pharma practice in Nigeria has stagnated in Nigeria so badly. While breakthroughs are being reported in other countries their only achievement in Nigeria is being called doctors.

But the sad part of this is that if u want to be a doctor and still legitimately proceed with your parmaceutical dreams, U can. They are called clinical pharmacologists and the country has many of them. But these charlatans want a short quick route. Why not? Everything goes in Nigeria.

For those who are quick to draw a parallel with what is obtainable in the US and other countries, the Nigerian Pharm D is a fraud for many reasons I dont have the time to go into. Ghana started bc they saw Nigeria and many other countries with vocal trade unions will soon follow.

The Nigerian pharmacists have simply taken the fight against doctors to a whole new level and they consider this a victory in what is no more than licensed quackery. The consequence is a chaotic health sector where nothing appears to be what it seems.

Perhaps this wouldnt have happened if doctors out of selfishness have not tenaciously held on to leadership of the health sector in appointments to political and administrative positions! God help Nigeria.

HomeOfMe:
Which Tony Akiotu is late,the former staff of AIT?

Sheggy13:
A person with a doctorate degree in whatever field is a Dr. What I see playing out here is just ego. It's only a question of nomenclature. If all medical staff are ethical enough, a pharmacist shouldn't rush to want to assume the role of a medical doc whenever a medical case is brought forward, and vice versa. Each have their job descriptions and would stick by them in a normal society.

adeoladrg:
The recent turn around by the National Universities
Commission (NUC) over the approval of the Doctor
of Pharmacy (Pharm.D) programme as a first
degree for pharmacy students in Nigerian
universities is generating a lot of controversy as
pharmacists under the aegis of the Pharmaceutical
Society of Nigeria (PSN) and the Pharmacy Council
of Nigeria (PCN) kick.
TRADITIONALLY, the primary responsibility of the
pharmacist was the safe and accurate dispensing
of drugs prescribed by the physician. Today,
pharmacists are involved in the clinical care of
their patients.
Indeed, to face the challenges in the practice
of pharmacy in Nigeria and abroad, pharmacists
have to be equipped with not only the knowledge,
but also the skills, attitudes and values required to
deliver high quality, consistent and safe treatments
to patients in collaboration with other health care
professionals.
A Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) is a
professional doctor degree in pharmacy. In some
countries, it is a first professional degree, and a
prerequisite for licensing to exercise the profession
of Pharmacy.
Pharm. D, a six-year first degree programme,
was borne out of the need for the Pharmacy
graduate to meet the ever-changing demand in
disease condition and be able to compete with
their counterpart.
The Pharm. D has deep clinical content for
Pharmacists to be more proficient in therapeutic
drug monitoring, drug interaction where interaction
with physician is critical for optimum outcome of
therapy for the benefit of the patient health.
The primary objective of the Pharm.D
programme is to train pharmacy practitioners to
possess leadership qualities, advanced expertise
and clinical experience that enable them to be at
the forefront of the pharmacy profession and health
care in a variety of settings - institutional,
community practice, government, academia,
industry, translational research and drug
development.
Little wonder that the National Universities
Commission (NUC) in 2007 approved the Pharm.D
programme for Nigerian universities.
It all began in January 2007 with an NUC
stakeholders’ workshop on Pharm.D degree
programme. The workshop was intended to chart
the future direction of pharmacy education in
Nigeria.
However, the NUC in a letter with Reference
number NUC/DQA/66 of April 10, 2007 addressed
to the Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities and
titled, ‘Approval for the award of Pharm. D degree
option, directed: “Consequently, Universities that
are interested in establishing the programme are
by this letter requested to make a formal
application to that effect to the NUC using the
approved format.”
Consequently, the University of Benin, Benin
City, Edo State, became the first institution offering
the Pharm.D degree, which commenced in 2001. It
is a six-year undergraduate programme. Prior to
the commencement of the programme, the
university offered a five-year Bachelor of Pharmacy
(B.Pharm) degree programme, which commenced
in 1970 but was gradually phased out in 2008.
In the Pharm.D programme, students are
given extensive didactic preclinical/professional
clinical preparation as well as clinical training in
pharmaceutical care in various hospitals in the
city.
The government regulatory agency for
pharmacy education, training and practice, the
Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN), and the
national professional body of pharmacists, the
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), has
envisaged that in the near future, Pharm.D degree
will become the minimum educational qualification
for fresh graduates of Nigeria’s pharmacy schools
to be registered/licensed to practice in the
country.
The Pharm.D programme is also a standard
practice in so many countries all over the world
including; Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia,
Algeria, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Philippines,
Thailand, Bangladesh, Czech Republic, Slovakia,
France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Iran,
Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates, Canada, United States, Brazil and Chile.
Currently, Pharm.D is a six to seven year
course being offered in Ghana, which started in the
academic year 2012/2013 notably by the Kwame
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
leading to the award of doctor of pharmacy and a
pharmacist licensure to operate.
The University of Nairobi offers a six-eight
year Pharmacist education programme. During the
first four years, students focus on studying
Pharmaceutical science. The last two years are
considered clinical residency in which students
practice clinical pharmacy at various hospitals and
community pharmacies before they graduate.
However, NUC seems to have made a swift
turn around. The NUC in an advertorial titled,
“Public Notice on Pharm. D Programme in Nigerian
Universities”, in the Daily Trust of Friday, May 30,
2014, wrote: “The NUC hereby draws the attention
of Nigerian Universities, and the general public to
the fact that the Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm. D)
Degree, as a first degree for Pharmacy students, is
not approved. The approved first degree for
pharmacy students in Nigeria Universities is the
Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm).

“Universities offering the Pharm.D degree
programme should, in their own interest, graduate
their students with B.Pharm degree as earlier
directed and ceased further admission into the
Pharm.D programme.
“While the stakeholders’ Workshop on Pharm.
D, held in January 2007, was an important
consultative workshop to chart the future direction
for Pharmacy Programme in Nigerian Universities;
the resolutions reached at the workshop were not
approvals by NUC for the commencement of the
Pharm.D programme in the Nigerian University
System.
“The general public is by this announcement
advised to avoid subscribing to the Pharm. D
Programme of any Nigerian University.”
But the PSN President, Olumide Akintayo,
said the NUC has not cancelled the Pharm.D
programme but rather has withdrawn its
accreditation of the programme in UniBen because
the University refused to answer a query from NUC
dated January 2014.
Akintayo said: “I will be bold and honest to
admit there were problems. Incidentally, these
problems were in-house to a large extent
especially from some of our universities. I must
thank the very pro-active management of NUC for
doing its job professionally and identifying the
grains of sand in our shoes before it would have
degenerated to an irredeemable calamity.
“Having said this we are working to redress the
dimensions of drawbacks to put in place a format
that is procedurally acceptable to the NUC.
“We therefore appeal to the Executive
Secretary of the NUC to use his good office to
facilitate speedy actualisation of Pharm.D
programme in Nigerian Universities. It is also
imperative that I strongly appeal to all members of
the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to speedily
approve the Benchmark Minimum Academic
Standards (BMAS) of this programme which is
pending for their adoption.”
Akintayo said the Pharm.D Programme does
not seek to take anything away from any other
health related discipline neither is it in conflict with
any of the health disciplines, rather it complements
the roles of the healthcare team members and
provides a wide window of opportunities that can
best communicate the new values, philosophy and
vision of the profession.
Chairman PCN, Mr. Bruno Nwankwo, in his
remarks on Pharm.D programme during a courtesy
call on the Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Julius
Amioba Okojie, on Friday June 13, 2014, said: “As
a regulatory body established by Act 91 of 1992
(now Cap P17, LFN, 2004) and charged with the
responsibility of regulating and controlling
pharmacy education, training and practice in all
aspects and ramifications in this country, the
Council considers it proper to make representation
to the NUC on the issue.
“… It is instructive to note that the Faculty of
Pharmacy, University of Benin, Benin City complied
with the PCN directive and has since commenced
the programme whilst the PCN has formally
communicated to the NUC to enquire for update on
Pharm.D programme.
“Furthermore in December 2007, an NUC
Resource Verification visit to the University of
Benin took place and the institution was informed
of additional resources that need to be put in place
for Pharm.D programme.
The PCN Chairman said the need to administer
Pharm.D programme in Nigerian Universities
became necessary for several reasons:
* Internationally, because of the changing roles of
the Pharmacist, the Federation of International
Pharmacists (FIP) had since directed that Pharm.D
programme should be the minimum registrable
qualification to practice Pharmacy
*The West African Health Organization (WAHO) held
meetings involving teachers and practitioners of
Pharmacy, Medicine and Nursing as well as their
regulatory bodies (including those from Nigeria)
and recommended to the WAHO Council of
Ministers that Pharm. D degree should replace the
B Pharm. Degree in the Universities in the West
African Region, both Anglophone and Francophone
countries;
*The importance the World Health Organization
(WHO) attaches to the role of the Pharmacist in
healthcare gave birth to the famous resolution of
the 47th World Health Assembly (WHA 47:12) held
on the 10th of May, 1994 and titled “Role of the
Pharmacist in support of the WHO revised drug
strategy”. The resolution further recognized the
need to place premium on re-orientation of
pharmacists through training modalities to properly
position them for emerging roles in public health
and particularly in the field of medicines.
Nwankwo said the changing roles of
pharmacists have benefited several countries that
have adopted Pharm. D degree in healthcare
services improvement and the quality of lives of
patients.
He further explained: “This is because
Pharm.D programme emphasizes the patient rather
than the product as the focus of the service.
Hence, in such scenario, the pharmacist is
physically present and professionally active to
contribute to the positive outcomes of drug
therapy. In addition, he is able to save drug costs
and to avoid unnecessary wastages because of his
intervention at the right time before drug
administration.
“After drug administration, he also monitors the
action of the drug and the response of the patient
as well as making necessary interventions to
minimize drug-related problems. None of these
roles encroach on roles of other healthcare
practitioners, including medical doctors.”
Nwankwo thanked the NUC Executive Secretary
for his usual positive disposition to the course of
pharmacy education in Nigeria and appealed that
he uses his good office to facilitate speedy
actualization of the Pharm.D programme in
Nigerian Universities.
Former PSN President, Mr. Anthony Akhimien,
told The Guardian: “It should be noted that on
announcement of the approval of Pham D in
Nigerian Universities, the Nigerian Medical
Association (NMA) and their Private Medical
Practitioners Group put up a protest that the
approval was going to encroach into their practice.
The matter stretched into the public court through
an interesting debate. A publication by the
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and the positive
response by the National Universities Commission
(NUC) in the print and electronic media that
Pharm.D is the norm as a first degree programme
in most past of the World put the matter to rest.
“In 2008, All the Deans of Faculties of
Pharmacy in Nigerian Universities, President,
Pharmaceutical Society of Nigerian, Registrar and
Chairman of PCN, Representative of National
Universities Commission (NUC) in the person of
Prof. Bicchi and a member of the Senate
Committee on Health, Prof. Eferikaya
went on a study tour of some Schools of
Pharmacy in the United States of America (Atlanta)
with focus on Pharm.D programme.
“The resolution at the end of the tour was that
most of the Faculties of Pharmacy in Nigerian
Universities will commence Pharm.D programme
in 2008/2009 academic session. Some Nigerian
Pharmacists in the US who had retired were to
come to Nigeria to assist in the smooth takeoff of
the programme. Nigerian Association of
Pharmacists and Pharmaceutical Scientists in
Americas (NAPPSA) were supposed to facilitate this
process. Various attempts were made but the
leadership of PCN and the betrayal of some of the
Deans did not help matters.”
Akhimien said the Pharm.D programme is
meant to enable pharmacists play more clinical
roles, provide and enhance more patient oriented
pharmaceutical services to be able to meet the
increasing needs of patients as medication is
becoming risky with many drug products emerging
daily.
He further explained: “In the 21st century,
healthcare services has become a multi-
professional and multi-dimensional approach in
nature whereby the patient is at the center of which
each professional services revolves round.
Expertise on drug and drug matters in this scheme
can only be render by pharmacists for the benefit
of the patient. ”
“The common perception that the Pharm. D
holder finds employment in Hospital practice only
is not correct. The Pharm.D programme thus
produces a more proficient Pharmacist both in the
area of clinical trials, health education promotion,
field surveys, therapeutic drug monitoring, drug-
drug, drug-food and drug disease interaction
profiles, thus establishing better working
relationship with physicians and other healthcare
providers for optimum outcome of therapy.
“The attempt to give the impression that
Pharmacists want to bear appellation of ‘Dr’ is
laughable but laden with abysmal ignorance.
Pharmacists including Nigerians who have
undergone similar training programme in the
United States and other countries in Europe
comparable to this programme are awarded
Pharm. D degree and bear the title ‘Dr’. Nigerians
who successfully completed such pharmacy degree
programmes in those countries have always been
addressed as ‘Doctors’. One may also add that
some professions like optometry have made
similar improvements in their educational
programmes and their enhanced graduates are
addressed as ‘Dr’, thus the title ‘Dr’ for the
Pharm.D graduates is merely inline with
internationally recognized practice.


www.ngrguardiannews.com/features/focus/167948-furore-over-doctor-of-pharmacy-degree-in-nigerian-varsities