Private Colleges can Help Medical Students
Medical education in India has become a corporate business in private medical colleges which are by and large owned by bigwigs with political affiliations. The large number of medical students who have returned to India from pandemic hit Wuhan (China) and now from war-torn Ukraine need to be taken care of as far as their academic rehabilitation is concerned. Any conventional delays on their part will shatter the dreams of thousands of students of becoming doctors. Meanwhile, our PM has given a call for the private sector to venture further in medical education to prevent students from moving to foreign countries for medical education. Also there was an announcement by our PM saying a decision has been taken to provide 50 per cent of medical seats in private medical colleges on government expenses. If this happens, it will herald a new era.
Let’s hope for the best as far as medical education is concerned as India requires more doctors to handle our patients who have been exposed to severe infections during the pandemic.
Mohammed Azam Shahid
Bengaluru, Karnataka
Make Medical Education Accessible to Most Aspirants
The Ukraine crisis has glaringly shown the inadequacies of Medical education system in the country. According to reports , Ukraine has over 20,000 students who have almost returned. These students are asking the Union Government to allow integration into the Indian medical system, in view of the ongoing war. In our country 90,000 UG medical seats are available every year, over 16 lakhs candidates vie for them through NEET and about 8.5 lakhs of them qualify. Only half of 90,000 seats are available in Government Quota, where the course is affordable. The cut off marks for NEET are low. In 2021 it was 138 out of 720 marks. Apart from affordability of education the problem of availability of seats also needs to be seriously addressed. There are 550 medical colleges in the country. As per WHO standard of one doctor for every 1000 persons, the country must have 1.38 million doctors but it has just 1.20 million doctors. Therefore, expansion of medical education is need of the hour so as to make it accessible to most aspirants.
Nazeer Ahmed Kazi
Prof Secab
Vijypur, Karnataka
Preserving Article 30
The Constitution of India has conferred on minorities rights to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice as per Article 30(1), of course with certain conditions. Appointments of teaching and non-teaching staff and to take actions if there is dereliction of duty on the part of any of its employees are among the conditions. However, The Indian Express (Ahmedabad, dt 26/08/2021) reported various incidents of maladministration by minority institutions reported to Education Department included allegations of appointing favourable unqualified ineligible candidates, recovering money from teachers in advance before they are paid under the salary scheme, taking advance donations extracting money, underpaying the staff members, exploiting employees by adopting discriminative policies in respect of their service matter and taking arbitrary actions.
In other words, it sounds like exploitation of “minorities in minority institutions”. Assuming facts on reports at least to lesser extent and in order to preserve and maintain the character of Minority status, it is utmost indispensable on the part of institutions and authorities at their level to have a non-discriminatory mechanism for redressal of the grievances of the employees in the form of a Staff Grievances Reparation Committee in permanent nature with one of its members being mandatory from Education Department.
Besides, each State government should create a contrivance with provisions and their frequent checks that will pledge protection to its staff members against such undue victimisation since the right to establish and administer educational institutions is not absolute nor does it permit under the guise of the fundamental right guaranteed by Article 30(1) of the Constitution to oppress and ill-use its employees.
Dr. Majeed Mulla
Via Email