9 days left for medical schools to provide clarity on admission criteria

The Democratic Alliance (DA) Shadow Minister for Higher Education & Technology Chantel King said ther is only six days left before the expiry of the 30-days promotion of access to information act (PAIA) response period for universities to provide clarity pertaining the criteria used when admitting potential students.

King said only three universities have responded thus far, including University of the Witswatersrand, University of Stellenbosch and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University.

The DA filed the application back in March after controversy with the admission of medical students, on whether discrimination plays a card.

Race card controversy

This follows after Dr Angelique Coetzee now former chairperson of the South African Medical Association (Sama) resigned with immediate effect in February citing that admission processes to medical schools were highly politicised.

However, Sama distanced itself from these claims calling them unfortunate.

Despite this she still remained a member of the board, Coetzee further claimed that race played a significant role in determining acceptance to medical faculties saying that different criteria existed for different race groups

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King said South Africa is always faced with a perennial shortage of doctors and it does not make sense that hundreds of qualifying students are denied the opportunity to fulfill their dreams to become health professionals due to discriminatory criteria used.

“The DA holds the strong view that no qualifying South African student should be discriminated against when applying to medical schools based on their race. Doing so is an infringement on individual rights and a violation of constitutional provisions on non-racialism and equality.” King explained

The 12 Universities were asked to provide a list of documents.

The University who are yet to submit their responses are, University of Pretoria, University of the Western Cape, Northwest University, University of Cape Town, University of KwaZulu Natal, University of Johannesburg, University of Limpopo, University of the Free State and Walter Sisulu University.

The DA looks forward to receiving the requested information from all the outstanding universities before or on the 15th of March 2022.

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