The specter of a “white year” hangs around the faculties of medicine and pharmacy, and Mirawi gives students a last chance.

Agadir 24 | Agadir24

It seems that the specter of a “white year” is hovering around the faculties of medicine and pharmacy against the backdrop of the blockage of dialogue and the intensification of the ongoing conflict in the faculties of medicine, pharmacy and dentistry between the students who have been boycotting studies and exams for more than 4 months, and between the ministries of higher education and health.

In this context, Abdellatif Mirawi, Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, called on medical students to return to the stands again, before the end of this month, to avoid a white year, and to take advantage of the opportunity of the remedial session to ensure success, as the problem of zeros will be overcome.

The minister said that the government “is fully prepared to cancel the disciplinary measures against the instigators of the strike, if classes resume.” In response to the interventions of some parliamentarians in the Education and Culture Committee of the House of Councilors, after they accused the government of “suppressing” students and failing them because of giving them zeros and referring the files of some of them to the judiciary to expel them, Mirawi said that what was promoted “are mere fallacies that will not be allowed to pass,” highlighting “Some students intimidate their colleagues to prevent them from continuing their studies.” He stated that “the government responded to 45 points in the demand file, and refused to interact with only 5 points, because they affect national sovereignty in the training of doctors.”

The students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy are demanding a number of demands, mainly to push the government to “restrain the reduction of the years of study from 7 to 6 years, restructure the third year, and reconsider the issue of increasing the number of foreign students, in light of the lack of infrastructure.” “Ensuring training in good conditions, and raising compensation for trainees in the third, fourth and fifth years.” On the other hand, the Ministries of Higher Education and Health insist that reducing the formative years is an “irreversible, sovereign decision.”