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Our View: Funding for state medical school should undergo strict evaluation
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DEPUTIES at Tuesday’s meeting of the House Education Committee were united in praising the Cyprus University’s plan to set up a medical school. “A dream is becoming a reality,” said an AKEL deputy, while a DIKO member described Tuesday as a “historic day” because the discussion of the bill for the medical school had begun.
Were the deputies not aware that there already is an operating medical school in Cyprus? Or did it not count because this was part of a private university – the University of Nicosia? We did not hear anyone from our political establishment waxing lyrical about this medical school, which opened its doors to students last September, at zero cost to the taxpayer. It was as if this was an inferior establishment that could not be taken seriously by our high-minded politicians, even if it was formally co-operating with, and using the expertise of, one of the UK’s top medical schools.
Instead of lavishly praising the Cyprus University’s plans for a medical school and dreaming of Cyprus becoming a regional medical centre, deputies should also have been asking a few questions. How much would this medical school cost the taxpayer? Would the taxpayer be paying through the nose so that we could have a state medical school? The Cyprus University, with its generously-rewarded academics, currently costs the taxpayer more than €100 million per year, and we dread to think what a medical school would cost.
Dr Andy Adam told deputies on Tuesday that the cost per student would be double that at the university, which is currently €12,000. It seems he is seriously under-estimating the cost if he is telling us that, in 2013, when the first 40 students are admitted, the annual cost of the medical school would be in the region of a million euro. We find this very hard to believe and we think the deputies need to ask some tougher questions the next time that Adam, the Rector and the Education Minister appear before the education committee.
Has a feasibility study been prepared, or will the legislature be fooled as it was in the case of the Cyprus Institute, which was supposed to be self-financing but, since its establishment in 2005, has cost the taxpayer €30 million? The idea was to hire top academics and pay them top money because they would be able to attract research funds from abroad. They secured a paltry €3.7 million in research funds in this period. We would not be surprised if the Cyprus University uses the same argument for recruitment to its medical school, and we end up paying a king’s ransom so that we can boast we have a state medical school.
