The Federal Government of Nigeria has approved medical fellowships awarded by recognised professional medical colleges as equivalent to PhD degrees, ending a long-running debate about academic qualifications required for medical professionals in Nigerian universities.
The decision follows years of disagreement over whether medical doctors must obtain a traditional PhD before advancing to the rank of professor in academic medicine.
In 2016, the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria set up a committee that concluded that a PhD should remain the qualification for teaching basic medical sciences. However, the committee also recommended that teaching clinical aspects of medical programmes should require a fellowship from the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.
In 2021, the National Universities Commission ruled that postgraduate medical fellowships from institutions such as the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria, the West African College of Physicians and the West African College of Surgeons were not equivalent to PhD degrees. The commission later reaffirmed its position in 2023, stating that medical academics must still obtain master’s and doctoral degrees to qualify for professorship.
However, speaking to journalists in Abuja after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, announced that the federal government had now recognised medical fellowships as PhD equivalents.
Alausa said the council approved amendments to the National Postgraduate Medical College Act to remove barriers preventing highly specialised doctors from progressing in academic careers.
“We need to remove the dichotomy of doctors who spent almost 16 years from medical school and their residency, and then doing their fellowship, becoming super specialised,” he said. “The kind of degree we need in Nigeria today for doctors is MBBS, Master of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery.”
He added that medical professionals often spend far more years obtaining a PhD than other academic disciplines, noting that once the executive bill is transmitted to the National Assembly of Nigeria, fellowships awarded by the National Postgraduate Medical College will be treated as equivalent to doctoral qualifications.
The meeting, presided over by Bola Tinubu, also approved additional measures in the education sector, including a six-year ban on the establishment of new privately owned universities, polytechnics and colleges of education.
The council further restored the National Commission for Mass Literacy Adult and Non formal Education to its full status as an independent commission.