JEDDAH, 6 March 2004 — Reports that 56 percent of graduates from private medical training institutes failed a recent qualification test are premature. A source at the Ministry of Health told Arab News that final results are not in as only the written part of the exam is over. The practical part is still to come.
In previous exams, the percentage of passing students differed depending on the specialty. The highest rate of failure is among paramedics because they are the highest number of applicants, according to the source.
Graduates of private training institutes interested in working in the public sector apply to the ministry and sit a qualifying exam. Those who fail are sent back to their institutions for another three months of training and then re-evaluated.
Introduced a year ago following concerns over the quality of training at private institutions, the exam is held three times a year — the one held two weeks ago covered 820 applicants. The exam does not cover applicants for jobs in the private sector.
“The exam is a compromise solution for now, but the issue of private institutes graduating qualified medical personnel is being studied further,” said the source.
The number of private institutions has increased in the past few years. More than 40 institutes are accredited by the Saudi Council for Health Specialties and another 20 have preliminary accreditation, according to Dr. Khalid Al-Rashood, the director of the college and institutes administration at the MOH. These institutes generally offer one to three years of courses and training in various health sectors.
They do some jobs better than others, according to Dr. Al-Rashood. “We noticed that the pass rate in some subjects was 100 percent because the students were trained in an institute that offered specialized medical services such as dentistry or artificial limbs,” said Dr. Al-Rashood.
But some institutes provided one-year training to paramedics and the success rate of their graduates was very low; the courses have now been stopped. The pass grade is 60 percent for the combined written and practical exam, yet many barely scrape though.
The success rate in previous exams has ranged from 15 percent to 100 percent depending on the subject. A committee will evaluate the institutes and follow their progress, but Dr. Al-Rashood does not expect its work to bear fruit for two years.
