AP Exclusive: Palestinians quit medical study in Venezuela

[Bacchus4.0]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/ap-exclusive-palestinians-quit-medical-study-in-venezuela/2015/07/16/2c02ce1c-2b70-11e5-960f-22c4ba982ed4_story.html

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The program to train young Palestinians as doctors was to be the latest addition to an array of international solidarity programs the late President Hugo Chavez established, the best-known of which provides communist Cuba with cheap oil in exchange for the services of tens of thousands of health professionals.

But eight months later, about a third of the Palestinians have dropped out, complaining the program lacks academic rigor, according to interviews The Associated Press conducted with students, teachers and government officials. At least 29 already have gone home, while the other dropouts have stayed on living rent-free as they wait to receive plane tickets.
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The students’ decision to leave prompted Venezuela to freeze the scholarship program that was supposed to bring in hundreds more Palestinians to study in various fields, according to an official in the Palestinian Education Ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The young people’s choices have raised diplomatic tensions between the two allies, said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

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But the students who dropped out complain that their first year consisted only of Spanish language lessons and indoctrination about Venezuela’s 16-year-old socialist revolution. They say they were surprised when their teachers presented a curriculum centered on community health and worried when doctors from other institutions warned that their education wouldn’t meet international standards.