To check ‘ghost faculty’ and ensure transparency, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has sought details of all the teachers from all the medical colleges in the country to upload them on its website.
The MCI, had recently written to all the colleges that the matter should be treated as “most urgent” and the information on faculty be furnished at the earliest.
Sources in the MCI said the move came after a three-member committee, headed by former Chief Justice of India RM lodha, appointed by the Supreme Court last month to oversee the functioning of the MCI for at least a year. It has asked the council to give the details of all the medical faculty associated with the colleges.
Intriguingly, the Council on its own in the past too had been issuing such circular asking the colleges to give an open declaration on the permanent medical faculty they employ as their have been time and again complaints that the medical colleges used to employ guest faculty to secure clearance from it during their inspections.
In fact, Punjab Medical Council President Dr GS Grewal who has initiated a petition seeking action against rampant corruption in the MCI has claimed that some medical colleges in his State had been deploying ghost faculty during the MCI inspection.
The lodha panel was set up by the Supreme Court after it felt that medical education and profession in the country is at its “lowest ebb” and suffering from “total system failure” due to corruption and decay, as was also pointed out by a Parliamentary Standing Committee report in March this year.
“Quality of medical education is at its lowest ebb, the right type of health professionals were not able to meet the basic health needs of the country. Products coming out of medical colleges are ill-prepared to serve in poor resource settings like Primary Health Centres.
Graduates lacked competence in performing basic health care tasks. Unethical practices continued to grow. The MCI was not able to spearhead any serious reforms in medical education,” the judgment noted, referring the panel report.