War, Students And Ukraine: What It Tells Us About The Medical Education In India

An Indian student died in Kharkiv amid heavy shelling on Tuesday. 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa had been studying at the Kharkiv National Medical University and was reportedly standing in a queue to buy food when he was killed.

Shekharappa's father told the media after his demise, "Despite scoring 97% in pre-University course, my son could not secure a medical seat in the State. To get a medical seat one has to give crores of rupees and students are getting the same education abroad spending less money."

But even as condolence messages pour in from all quarters and India races to evacuate thousands of stranded citizens, the medical education system in the country has become a topic of conversation.

Twitter

Reasons why students choose to study abroad

An estimated 20,000 Indians studying medicine in the war-torn country have put the spotlight on the poor state of medical education in India. Approximately 20,000¨C25,000 students go abroad every year to study medicine. This high number is mainly because of two reasons. The first is that the number of students aspiring to be doctors far exceeds the seats available in India.

A quick search in the website of the National Medical Commission, which replaced the beleaguered Medical Council of India as the top regulatory body for medical education in India, showed that there are 605 medical colleges with a total of 90,825 MBBS seats a year.

While this number may seem huge, it pales when we compare it with the fact that around 1.6 million students wrote the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for MBBS admissions in 2021.

Reuters

The second reason is the prohibitive cost of private medical education in India. It costs more than Rs 1 crore for a four-and-a-half year MBBS course while government medical colleges charge only a fraction of that. But as most of the aspirants cannot get admission into government institutions and the private colleges in India charge a huge sum, studying medicine in Ukraine, China and Russia is a cheaper option where they can finish the entire course at only Rs 20¨C25 lakh.

Then, enters the relevance of countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, China, the Philippines and Trinidad & Tobago. These countries offer relatively good quality medical education at one-third the rates of private eduacation in India.

Consequences of medical industry mismanagement

This situation in which only one out of ~16 aspirants will get selected for medical studies in India, throws up several interesting dynamics. The coaching industry for medical entrance exams thrive on this demand-supply mismatch, and many have made a fortune starting ¡®coaching centres¡¯.

At the same time, this also results in a situation where parents with deep pockets are willing to go to any length to finance their child¡¯s dream. Their demand for medical seats are satisfied by some private medical colleges which find ingenious ways to tweak the system to admit non-meritorious students for a premium.

The Indian Express/Representational Image

The easy money in medical education made it a safe haven for crooks and shady characters, right from mining barons to former chief ministers. It was common knowledge that the Medical Council of India was hand-in-glove with these dubious medical college owners. If a student does not manage to secure a ¡®merit¡¯ seat in a government medical college, the parents will end up spending anywhere between Rs 50 lakh-1 crore on medical education in a private institution.

Besides, we can look at the kind of forex flow happening due to students going abroad for their medical education. Assuming that there are 20,000 students moving out of the country a year and close to 100,000 students are at various stages of their medical education, if a student spends Rs 5-6 lakh a year, the total forex outflow will be close to $1 billion a year. This shows that there is economic sense to reform and invest in India¡¯s medical education.

Possible solution to crisis

Resonating similar sentiments as of Naveen's father, medical aspirants, students and experts have taken to Twitter and demanded an overhaul of Indian medical education. They want the change to start from how we shortlist our students for admission to medical colleges - NEET - the national level mediacl entrance and eligibility exam.

Coaching centres, the Hindi heartland and the wealthy are the gianers of NEET. Common Kannadiga who would have got medical seet with CET isnbeing denied and a non Kannadiga is given the seat in Karnataka. This is cheating.#BanNeet #NEET

¡ª ??????? Janardhana (@Janardhana1956) March 2, 2022

The idea of "One nation, One exam" is detrimental for the Kannadiga students. NEET favours CBSE syllabus, which is again a blow on the federal system of Indian Union. CBSE must be limited to Central govt employees' children and NEET must be scrapped immediately. #BanNeet

¡ª ??????? ???? (@hosabaraha) March 2, 2022

Of the ~83,000 MBBS seats, 40% are in the 5 southern states, and of 16 lakh applicants 30% are from these states. While only 20% of India's population resides in these 5 states. pic.twitter.com/pJ5BWO6nwq

¡ª Pratap Vardhan (@PratapVardhan) March 2, 2022

BCCL

It¡¯s time that medical education in India is reformed. The National Medical Commission Act 2019, which replaced the Medical Council of India with a new body with four autonomous boards, is indeed a welcome step in this regard. But more needs to be done to release medical education from the shackles of perverse regulatory structures. Let the good institutions thrive and the bad ones perish.

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