Medical education sector in India is ailing, and the Government must set the house in order
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has ended up making a talk of the town, the fact that thousands of Indian students who are in that country, mostly studying medicine, need to be evacuated at the earliest. The discourse in India has in the meantime gone off tangent to issues like why Indian students should go to countries like Ukraine to study medicine. With the Prime Minister himself raising the subject, it got a top-notch attention in the media and social media.
He did not mention Ukraine as such, but his message was clear: “Our children today are going to small countries to study, especially medical education. Language is a problem there. They are still going... Can our private sector not enter this field in a big way? Can our State Governments not frame good policies for land allotment regarding this?”
We all know the reasons why students go abroad to study medicine. Seats in Government medical colleges are limited. The competition is huge and cutoffs are quite high. Private medical colleges are quite expensive, some prohibitive. Many students focus on high-end universities abroad. The rest, who are unable to get good enough ranks for seats in Government colleges or cannot afford fees in private ones, have only one option: Go to countries like Ukraine. There are no entrance tests, many universities are accepted by the Medical Council of India, education is comparatively cheap, and the training and facilities are adequate.
In 2015, 3,398 certificates of eligibility were granted by the Medical Council of India to Indian students wishing to study medicine abroad. The figure increased to 17,504 in 2018. It may have doubled by now. But when students return from the “smaller countries” with MBBS degrees, they have two more hurdles to cross.
One, they have to complete a 12-month supervised internship in India in addition to the 12-month internship they have to complete as part of their studies. Then they have to take a test of the National Medical Commission to be able to practice in India. It is quite a tough examination. In June 2021, 18,048 candidates appeared for the examination and only 4,283 qualified. They have no option but to keep taking the test till they pass. Finally, they have to do a Master’s for basic specialisation. In all, that takes up a decade of their lives.
From being an elitist profession, medicine is now an aspirational one. Those who have neither the qualifying marks nor the money to be able to study in India have enough purchasing power to look for options elsewhere. Seeking education abroad is a personal choice. But where it is forced, the only way out is for the Government to expand public medical education and make private education cheaper by banning donation and capitation fees. It is not just about giving land for new medical colleges. It is about regulating unchecked profit that has industrialised private medical education.
(The writer is a retired Principal)