| URL: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za | |
| Policy, Law, Economics and Politics - Deepening Democracy through Access to Information | This privately-owned website is operated and maintained by Creamer Media |
 |
 |
|
Polity
Published: 30 Aug 2006
|
|
| Pandor: Discovery Foundation Launch (30/08/2006) | |
| Date: 30/08/2006 Source: Department of Education Title: Pandor: Discovery Foundation Launch Address by the Minister of Education, Ms Naledi Pandor, MP, at the launch of the Discovery Foundation, Johannesburg Mr Adriaan Gore, Dr Vincent Maphai and Discovery Foundation trustees, Vice Chancellors, University representatives, Deans of medical faculties and other representatives from the medical fraternity, Distinguished guests, It is indeed a great honour for me to be invited to participate in the launch of what is to be a remarkable investment in medical education, and in particular the training of medical specialists who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the stark realities of contemporary South Africa is most evident in the limited quality and provision of healthcare, infrastructure, and services in our poorer communities. South Africa has a world-class health-care sector with outstanding medical experts, working in well resourced hospitals and undertaking cutting edge research. Yet far too many of our citizens do not receive adequate healthcare. The Department of Health is, as you know, driving a number of initiatives to remedy this situation. While the Department of Health is in charge of the public health system in our country, the responsibility for medical education and training lies primarily with the Department of Education. It is my understanding that, in general, we do not train too few doctors or other health professionals. The challenge lies in encouraging them to practise in the public sector. Most of the health spending is in the private sector that services only seven million people, 5,2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A smaller share is spent on 35 million people in the public sector (3,5 percent of GDP). So the challenge is that there is a skewed distribution of personnel between the public and private sector. And it is aggravated by the escalating trend of health professionals leaving the country. Before and after 2 000 there was a significant unregulated expansion in university student enrolments, but not in enrolments in our eight medical schools (1 309 new doctors in 1999 and 1 296 in 2003) which is why there is such competition for admission. Transformation there certainly has been. One in four currently registered medical practitioners is a woman but two in four medical graduates are now women. In time this transformation in our medical schools will lead to a significant demographic shift in the ratio of women to men in the profession. In fact, it is becoming common to hear complaints about the feminisation of the profession and the lowering of standards! The proportion of black medical graduates has increased in comparison with whites but the small number of newly trained African doctors is still a cause for concern. Any future growth in our universities has to be planned to take into account our development goals and our scarce-skills requirements. Recently a joint Department of Finance and Department of Education working group report highlighted four major resource problems in the public higher education sector: * lack of a link between increased volumes of Higher Education (HE) activity and government funding * the lack of a capital-funding programme * the use of tuition-fee increases to balance institutional budgets * the failure of academic staffing levels to keep pace with student enrolment expansion. While we are resolving these matters, initiatives like the Discovery Foundation Awards will make an important contribution to transformation in the medical profession. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), which has given about R55 million in loans to 3 400 students in the medical field since 1994, needs strengthening. It takes a long time to become a doctor, five years study and two years internship; it costs about R780,000 in all (R340,000 to train a nurse). All universities with medical schools provide bursaries for medical students and provincial government and other institutions and organisations do the same. The Discovery Foundation?s Excellence Award will recognise such interventions. The other three awards focus on areas where we need to encourage doctors to specialise or practise in rural areas as specialists and in academic medicine. In closing, let me repeat that our main challenge is to attract our medical practitioners into the public sector and to retain them there. The majority of medical practitioners in many public-health hospitals and in specialist areas are young doctors or community interns or immigrant doctors. There is a general migration of medical practitioners from rural health centres to urban areas, from the public to the private sector and from South Africa to abroad. Although emigration can be a constructive dynamic in terms of international exchange and skills development we continue to be on the wrong end of an unequal exchange in terms of international labour mobility. It is targeted and structured interventions like the Discovery Foundation?s Fellowship Awards that can begin to assist us in redressing these issues. Ladies and gentlemen, again I would like to express my admiration of Discovery?s remarkable initiative and to thank the Discovery Foundation chairperson and trustees for all their hard work. I thank you! Issued by: Department of Education 30 August 2006 |
|