To the National Dental Examining Board of Canada,

To Dr. Dennis Fuchs, Dr. Jim Richardson, Dr. Doug Mackey, Dr. Amarjit Singh Rihal, Dr. Stefan Haas-Jean, Dr. Sneha Abhyankar, Dr. Ron Yarascavitch, Dr. Mintoo Basahti, Dr. Alan Robinson, Dr. Andrew Rowe, Dr. Nancy Auyeung, Dr. Martin Gillis, Dr. Jan Sheppard Kutcher, 

We, a community of dental graduates worldwide intending to apply for NDEB equivalency process, would like to propose a modification to NDEB’s policies regarding the selection of venues for equivalency examinations, AFK and ACJ, on the basis of the following statements:

A. In 2019, according to the annual reports, among the 2755 applicants, a total of 326 applicants (11.5%) were from middle eastern countries and another 1,009 applicants (39.6%) came from India & Pakistan. Similarly, in 2018, among the 2799 applicants, 17% came from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, UAE and Saudi-Arabia and another 55% came from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

B. Currently, the only NDEB venues outside Canada are Paris and Dunedin, both of which, are considered countries geographically far from middle east, imposing strict regulations for visas requested from middle eastern countries and constituting only a small percentage of NDEB applicants each year.

C. As stated on NDEB website regarding written and OSCE examinations, "examination centers may be established outside of Canada if a minimum of 50 candidates register for a center and an acceptable examination location with acceptable security can be established." We sincerely hope that the same policy could be adapted to AFK and ACJ exams.

D. In view of technical difficulties, the AFK and ACJ examinations are now administered electronically at Prometric test centers. These prometric centers are available in various middle eastern countries. Australian Dental Council (ADC) for example, has 8 venues located in middle east for its computer-based written examinations. We understand that NDEB examinations venues are established after meticulous considerations a year prior to exams and a prometric center is required to meet certain criteria. It is however our assumption that, it is within NDEB’s strength, to establish a single venue, available to its most frequent applicants.

In Recognition of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the resultant travel restrictions, it is our hope that the NDEB would take action towards removing current barriers, especially imposed on applicants from middle eastern countries who are often simply denied the opportunity to sit the examinations due to visa problems.