THE exposure of an illegal health sciences training college by Science and Vocational Training Minister, Gabriel Namulambe should be a clarion call for regulatory authorities in the education sector to rise and closely scrutinise many other such institutions in Zambia.

There are ample indicators to suggest that hundreds of privately run training institutions and colleges do not meet the stipulated minimum standards in their fields.

The idea to set up schools and training institutions to supplement the Government's efforts and absorb thousands of students who cannot find vacancies in State institutions is welcome.

And there is no doubt that some of the schools and institutions that have been established in Zambia in this manner are doing a commendable job to offer quality instruction to their charges and giving them a chance for a better life.

What is abominable is setting up training institutions that are not bonafide either because the creators are not properly qualified in the respective fields themselves, do not have enough qualified manpower or lack the necessary equipment and teaching aids to effect accepted instruction.

The damage done to students who enroll in such institutions is immeasurable.

In the first place, as Mr Namulambe has pointed out, such youths waste both time and money when their qualifications are deemed inadequate by employers.

In the case of those who, somehow, end up finding employment and serving in their fields, their inadequacy poses a grave danger to the public.

This is certainly true of institutions like the Institute of Health and Technology that Mr Namulambe visited.

The institute has trained about 1,000 students during its existence in such sensitive medical disciplines as pharmacy.

Everyone with a basic grasp of poisons and drugs knows that any error in the administration or combination of medicines can endanger life because some of the medicines are not supposed to be mixed or given in excessive dosage.

It does not require much imagination to infer the number of people that have been endangered by people that have been trained in pharmacy in such a manner.

There is need therefore, for the respective regulatory authorities to revisit the operations of such institutions for the sake of the safety of the people of Zambia.