I have been seeing a lot of posts lately from various intellects in Colombo metaphorically describing Dansals and what not and how some people are getting to eat there and some people are not, and the people who get to eat there are hating on the people who don't get to eat from the Dansal and choose to eat from a shop instead etc etc... While I agree with their premise that all should have access to education, I believe everyone (including those against this view) are fighting on the wrong points of the argument.
Simply:
Simply:
- There has been a certain private medical school set up.
- The owners of this school (not its students, mind you) are trying to bypass standards set down by the governing bodies of health (not the best standards, mind you) in getting more students from their school graduated as practicing doctors as quickly as possible, simply because they want to build the name of the school and make more money (not because they love their students, mind you).
- There have been any number of private medical graduates joining the ranks of doctors in Sri Lanka year after year - these are the foreign graduates that completed their studies in another country - and they do so by sitting for a standardized and accepted exam - The Examination for Registration to Practice Medicine, or ERPM.
- The aforementioned owners of the internal private medical school have, for the aforementioned reasons, sought to bypass ERPM entirely, putting the capabilities of their graduates in to question. I'm not saying they're incapable - but their capabilities are in question; they wouldn't accept your TOEFL results if you didn't do the exam at a registered testing center, would they?
I believe both factions who are getting involved in these arguments are approaching it the wrong way: those opposed make it look like they hate all private uni medical students (or someone is running a very good PR campaign to make it look that way - I wonder who?), and those who are in approval focus on this opposition rather than on the fact that these graduates do, for their own good, need to undergo a standardized and accepted medical school education that does not put their capabilities in to question (imagine them working under a consultant and getting shouted at every day - for mistakes anyone could make - just because they're from a unit that the consultant sees as 'non-standard').
The solution should not be people getting in to shouting matches, running pickets against each other, or writing angry posts on social media - the solution is for these two factions to get together, understand the real problem, and take action to rectify the mistakes that are being openly made to feed the greed of a few people who stand to gain a lot by screwing everyone over. Your anger and arguments should be directed at them - not at each other.