After the Parliamentary Standing Committee report published in February 2024 highlighted severe faculty shortages in medical colleges across the country, several medical associations have underlined the problems arising in medical colleges due to a lack of faculty. As per the Ministry of Health, the recommended teacher student ratio must be 1:2 or 1:3, but the situation is said to be far worse.
Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD), Federation of Resident Doctors Association (FORDA), Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) have recently complained to the higher authorities regarding the deteriorating quality of medical education due to the lack of quality teachers in colleges. The Parliamentary report also invoked concerns about the overall quality of education, pointing to the criticality of the shortage of teachers, demanding immediate attention and reforms by the government.
The faculty shortage in medical colleges in India is due to several reasons including lack of appointment of teachers, inadequate infrastructure, and appointment of ghost faculty, lack of senior residents, and the reluctance of professors to meet the mandated attendance requirements.
Speaking to Education Times, a Health Ministry official says, there is a huge faculty shortage in medical colleges across the country. The case is worse in district hospitals and the major problem is the lack of qualified and eligible teachers. MD/MS is the minimum eligibility for these positions, which means it could take at least 9-10 years to get to that level, but the salaries are much less for that post.
A candidate must have at least eight years of experience after MD/MS to become a professor, including one year as a Senior Resident (SR), four years as an assistant professor, and three years as an associate professor
The medical colleges in Telangana are reportedly facing a 50% faculty deficit, while in West Bengal as many as 5000 medical professors are missing. To ensure attendance, the Parliamentary Committee has recommended regular inspection of medical colleges and introducing systems where students can report low attendance or ghost faculty. To improve quality, the Committee has also asked the NMC to focus on upskilling teachers by introducing relevant programmes and establishing a dedicated national institute for their training.
Dr Rohan Krishnan, national chair- man, FAIMA doctors association, says, "Random opening of medical colleges without proper planning of hiring faculty is a major reason behind the shortage. There is about 50% deficiency of medical staff across the country. Post the pandemic, the NMC has stopped doing physical inspections of medical colleges encouraging malpractices. Several private colleges have severe staff crises as they are not hiring. The staff shortage has affected the quality of doctors who are not hired any- more by foreign countries, which earlier was not the case. Doctors who specialise in medical streams such as Cardiology, and Medicine prefer to earn more out of private practice than enrolling in medical colleges as faculty."
More doctors are needed in rural areas where the salary is dismal. "The issue of pay parity is yet another reason for problems in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
published on 01/04/2024
Education Times
