Indian medical students be Iing stuck in the warzone in Ukraine has brought in a sharp focus on the availability of medical seats in India. Experts feel the number of medical seats in India can be increased by increasing the batch size, which is restricted to 250 at the moment, through public private partnerships and by spending on R&D. It is estima ted that 20,000-25,000 stu dents go abroad to study Medicine every year, of which al most 60% study in China, Rus sia, and Ukraine. PM Narendra Modi recently asked the private sector to enhance its pre in the medical education sector to prevent Indian students from going to small countries. Tuition fee of a private medical college in India costs Rs 50 lakh or more, while in Ukraine or Russia, the entire fee is about Rs 35 lakh.
"To control the soaring medical education fee, NMC issued guidelines for fee regulation on February 3, 2022. It had asked the institutes to fix the fees for 50% seats in private medical colleges at par with the fee charged in government colleges in the state or UT, but it remains to be seen whether this regulation can be implemented effectively. Also, this may be unfair to the other 50% of students. Ideally, the fee for all the seats should have been regulated. China has fewer medical colleges compared to India, but they have 2 lakh students, while we have 500 medical colleges with batch size of only 250 students," says a government official on the condition of anonymity. Dr Ajit Kumar, director, Sharda University, Uttar Pradesh, proffers that the government rural health centres can be connected to private medical colleges.
"We will have to focus on public-private partnerships, more medical colleges and seats to have skilled doctors through private funding and global tie-ups," says Dr P Ravi Pachamuthu, pro-chancellor, SRM University, Kattankulat hur, Tamil Nadu.
Published on :- Times of India
Date :- 07 03 2022
