‘Upper-class’ drive plan for medical school test

PLANS to add aptitude tests to the selection procedure for medical schools will lead to more doctors’ children entering the profession, a medical professor warned.

Education Minister Noel Dempsey has given his support to proposals by the Working Group on Undergraduate Medical Education to make an aptitude test an additional requirement to Leaving Certificate results.

However, Ciarán Bolger, professor of clinical neuroscience at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, said the plans were being driven solely by the agenda of upper-class parents who want their children to qualify for medical schools.