The National Universities Commission (NUC) has declared that fellowship of the National Postgraduate Medicine College of Nigeria (NPMCN) and other fellowships was not equivalent to possessing a Ph.D degree from a university.
The declaration by the NUC, regulator of Nigerian University System (NUS), has laid to rest the contentious argument among academic staff and university management that holders of the fellowship do not need to go for doctorate programmes as the fellowship was equivalent to Ph.D.
Aside fellowship of NPMCN, NUC said holders of the West African College of Physicians (WACP) or West African College of Surgeons (WACS) or any other recognised foreign fellowship cannot be equated to a Ph.D degree holder.
In a memo to a federal university, NUC informed the management that Ph.D degree has no other degree or certificate equivalent to it.
“For the avoidance of doubt, holders of PhD must have gone through Bachelor of Science (BSc), Bachelor of Arts (B.A), Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng) and Master of Science (MSc), Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Engineering (M.Eng) or as the case may be in the relevant field,” the NUC said.’
The clarification may not be unconnected with recent arguments by professors of medicine with fellowships from these institutes that applied for the posts of vice chancellors, where one of the requirements is a Ph.D degree.
“One of the issues on the front burner is the postgraduate training for medical academic, which has no clear cut-guidelines for masters and Ph.D programmes in the clinical sciences,’’ NUC observed.