Nigerian Newsday

By Lawal Dogara, Kaduna

Students of the School of Medical Laboratory Sciences (SMLS), Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, have complained of series of, problems, one of which is their non-inclusion in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.

The students are also not happy that they have to pay exorbitant fees in the course of their training.

They also said in a letter addressed to the vice chancellor of the university (ABU) that they were "suffering a barrier of distance from the Ambrose Ali University (AAU) Ekpoma to which their school is affiliated", adding "the AAU is contributing little or nothing to our training".

They therefore appealed to ABU to integrate them into its system so that they could have a relief from their persisting problems.

The letter which was signed by their president, Aaron Ayodele stated: "We humbly want to request that ABU should consider us with passion and start the BMLS programme so that we could be incorporated into its system to reduce our problems".

The letter which was copied to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Director-General SSS, NASS Secretariat, Iyan Zazzau and the mass media, included a copy of a publication by the National Universities Commission (NUC) announcing the closure of unapproved affiliation, a decision which they said has also affected their affiliation to the AAU in far away Ekpoma, Edo State.

To satisfy a Federal Government deadline of the year 2000 for the affiliation of schools of medical laboratory sciences to universities, the SMLS in Zaria got affiliated, the letter explained, to AAU as a stop-gap arrangement.

"Despite the affiliation to AUU", the students noted, "our training from inception to the end has always been championed by ABU".

On their exclusion from the NYSC scheme, the students noted: "Non-mobilisation of our graduates for youth service, which is the pride of every Nigerian student after five years of rigorous professional training and one year of compulsory internship, makes us feel rejected".

They argued that since their was a five-year bachelor of medical laboratory science degree programme which is normal circumstances qualifies them for the nation’s one year service progreamme which has become very popular among young people graduating with a degree or higher national diploma (HND).

The students also complained of delay in release of results, saying, the 2004/2005 set that wrote their final examination last December have not got their results 11 months after graduating.