Indian pupils applying to study medicine must produce more competitive results than their black and coloured counterparts because they are not as likely to have been "educationally disadvantaged", says the University of Cape Town.
And while white and Indian students are required to provide personal reports detailing their leadership positions, volunteer services, work undertaken and other extra-curricular activities, UCT has said it will admit black students without such reports.
This was revealed in UCT's response to the Cape High Court case brought against it by the Durban parents (both doctors) of an Indian student, Sunira, who was not accepted to study medicine.
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Sunira was one of more than 2 100 people to apply for 200 positions to study first-year medicine at UCT.
| 'Volunteer hospital work not competitive' |
Her parents decided to take UCT to court after her friend, also an Indian girl, was accepted by the university although her marks were not as good.
It emerged in correspondence before the High Court that the university had offered the second girl a place in the mistaken belief that she was African.
When it discovered its error, the university withdrew its offer, but reinstated it when the girl's parents threatened legal action.
Sunira's parents said UCT's decision not to allow their daughter to study medicine was "irrational" and unconstitutional.
In an affidavit before the court, UCT Registrar Hugh Amoore contended that the university's rejection of Sunira's application was "entirely rational and reasonable".
He revealed that UCT's "target equity mixes" for first-time entering medicine undergraduates were set at 42 percent African, 28 percent white, 16 percent coloured and 14 percent Indian.
Gender targets required 65 percent of these students to be female and 35 percent male.
About 80 percent of each prospective medicine student's assessment would depend on his or her academic performance, while about 20 percent would be determined from the results of his or her health sciences placement test and personal report, Amoore said.
But applicants from "educationally disadvantaged backgrounds" - who Amoore said would not have had the opportunities for leadership, volunteer services/work and extra-curricular activities - would be assessed individually.
Amoore stated that Sunira's personal report - which revealed that she had done volunteer work for Reach for a Dream and worked in a hospital - was not competitive enough.
While applicants who attended former department of education and training, Transkei and house of representative schools were regarded as coming from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, applicants who attended former house of delegates schools were not, Amoore said.
Former house of delegates, which catered to Indian pupils, "are considered generally to have provided adequate education and opportunities" to pupils who attended such schools, Amoore argued.
Amoore also pointed out that the government provided additional funding to public higher education institutions "with large proportions of disadvantaged students".
UCT medicine faculty manager Brenda Klingenberg added: "The reason for admitting black school leavers with inferior academic performance scores and weaker health sciences placement test results is that it is necessary to do so to achieve population group targets."
Both Amoore and Klingenberg said there were a "large number" of unsuccessful Indian medicine applicants whose applications were stronger than Sunira's.
- This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Argus on February 28, 2005
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