Sindh medical, dental council planned

Health minister says province will conduct admissions for medical colleges itself

The Sindh government has decided to conduct tests for medical and dental colleges by itself allowing candidates with 50 per cent marks to apply for MBBS admission instead of Pakistan Medical Council’s threshold of 65 per cent.

Sindh Minister for Health and Population Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho chaired an important meeting regarding medical and dental colleges admission tests in Sindh.

Vice Chancellors of public and private medical universities participated in the meeting through video link. The meeting discussed the overall test taken by the PMC and the issues that came up after that.
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Pechuho said that PMC has caused encumbrance for medical students and professionals. She noted that 30 different papers were taken for admission in one type of medical colleges.

“It is imperative that next year we take the admission test for medical colleges at the provincial level ourselves,” Pechuho said. “If PMC does not listen to us then legislation will be made for Sindh Medical and Dental Council.”

The meeting was informed that the total number of seats in medical and dental colleges in Sindh is 5,490.

The health minister directed the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto University, Larkana, Admissions Department to set up a portal at the provincial level to take the admission process forward.

Candidates appearing for MDCAT on the portal will be asked for educational details, domicile and test results. According to MDCAT results, students who get 50% marks will be able to apply for admission in MBBS and those who get 40% marks will be able to apply for admission in BDS.

It was decided in the meeting that after the overall details of the candidates come out, the admission policy in Sindh will be clarified in the next meeting.

In the meeting, the provincial health minister stressed that opportunities would be provided to students from rural areas.

“It is important for us to give importance to the students of our province for medical admission in any case,” Pechuho said.

She said the Sindh government is considering lowering the pass percentage for medical and dental college admission test (MDCAT) so that more candidates are accommodated and no seats remain empty as happened last year.

She said the provincial government is compelled to take this decision following the fact that candidates who appeared in the entry test were not satis-fied with the test system as they were disqualified on various grounds, not acceptable to them. She said, the candidates, not only from Sindh but from other provinces as well, are protesting against the current admission test system.

She said lowering the minimum passing marks from 65 per cent to 50 per cent will help students from Sindh to fill the available number of seats and there remains no need to invite students from other provinces.

She said the province is fully empowered as per the law and constitution to devise its own policy and test system to offer admissions into medical and dental colleges. She said the PMC had pursued an ill-advised policy and decided to increase the minimum pass percentage of MDCAT from 60 per cent to 65 per cent since last year despite that there was no need to in-crease the minimum qualify-ing marks when the education of students in the colleges had been phenomenally affected during the last one year due to Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Pechuho said that owing to the same unfair system of MDCAT, 492 out of total 600 seats for Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS), available in the province, remained vacant last year.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2021.