Something Sick
High costs, poor infra, scams, and unrealistic demand – medical education is in dire straits
NEET retest, with a relatively smaller pool of candidates – 20L is still no mean number – went off without incident, and saw a percentile-based, higher cut-off. The fiascos over NEET keep attention on the challenges of a centralised admissions process. But the ills of medical education are many, and issues chronic, since the framework itself is the problem. Where does one begin the count? With the coaching industry’s monopoly? With poor infra in govt medical colleges? With private medical colleges’ fees? – Tuition fees, on average, range upwards of ₹45L-₹55L. NRI seats can go up to ₹1.4cr for a 4.5-year MBBS course. A six-year MBBS course in Ukraine, Russia or China costs about ₹35L. Further, why are ghost faculty still a reality in our private colleges?
A direct result of all of the above is the poor quality of MBBS degrees. Earlier this year, NEET-PG administrators managed the unthinkable: the qualifying cut-off fell to zero, reflecting the extremely poor performance of MBBS graduates. How could candidates, all MBBS graduates, unable to score even 30-35% on an MBBS-based entrance test, be considered for specialist training? A low cut-off means lower-ranked, affluent students obtain seats, at the cost of higher-scoring but less affluent ones. What happens to the ‘merit’ argument? Maintaining a higher cut-off can, in fact, force private colleges to reduce fees to fill up seats. But that doesn’t happen. Why?
The bigger reality is that desire for medical education far outstrips realistic demand. This is because nothing in the ever-shrinking job pool offers what a career in medicine can – potentially lucrative in urban India, with high status. Shortage of doctors, mostly in rural India, can be addressed by a decentralised admissions process. Which brings us back to NEET. As a centralised test, it is required, really, only for admission to private medical colleges.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
