Medical seats likely to go up by 8,000 this year

Medical education seats in India are expected to rise significantly this academic year, with the National Medical Commission (NMC) anticipating a combined increase of close to 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate seats nationwide. As per NMC chairperson Dr Abhijat Sheth, the Assessment and Rating Board had already initiated inspections on institutions that have applied for increased capacity, and the process was still on track despite a recent corruption investigation.

NEET-UG counselling has already started, with the first phase completed and the second phase likely to start from August 25. There were fears of the total seats available this year reducing, following the discovery by the Central Bureau of Investigation of a purported group of officials of the Union Health Ministry, members of the NMC, intermediaries, and representatives of private institutions who engaged in illegal manipulation of the regulatory environment of medical colleges.

The NMC then put on hold all proposals for developing new courses and increasing seats until the time when the agency carried out its investigations. The FIR filed in July implicated 34 people, eight of whom were Union health ministry officials, a National Health Authority official and five doctors who worked on NMC inspection teams.

"Along with my appointment, the president of Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) also has been appointed. We have taken on board completion of inspection of UG medical seats on a priority basis and the assessments are underway," Dr Sheth stated. "We expect an addition of approximately around 8,000 seats (UG and PG seats combined) based on the applications we have received in this academic year," he added.

Currently, the nation has 1,18,098 undergraduate seats, with a half-and-half division between government (59,782) and private (58,316) colleges. 53,960 postgraduate seats are available, of which 30,029 are in public colleges and 23,931 in private colleges.

Even as Dr Sheth accepted that some UG seats might have been cut back in response to the CBI inquiry, he underlined that the general availability was poised to grow after inspections are completed. "Due to the continuing (CBI) inquiry, numbers of UG seats might have decreased. But overall, the number of seats is ultimately going to go up by 8,000 or even more after the final inspection process ends," he added.

The NMC has also started inspection of colleges that had applied for new postgraduate seats and is sure these will be included in the counselling round in September. "We are hopeful that new seats will also be included in the PG counselling process," said Dr Sheth.

Coming to the National Exit Test (NExT) for final year MBBS students, Dr Sheth stated the NMC supported the proposal in principle but stressed consensus-building prior to implementation. "NExT is a new idea no doubt but there are so many questions left unanswered. We must make sure that this model is compatible with the medical education that we are offering to our students," he said.

He further said that the ministry had been pursuing the issue for the past two years and that the concerns of students had to be addressed in a complete manner. "Students' fear has to be removed and their confidence level for this exam has to be developed. It has to be made aware that this exam is not going to be tough to them but it is going to be a fair test to them," he added.

Dr Sheth also spoke of concerns regarding the quality of medical graduates during the steep increase in medical colleges since 2014, emphasizing that quantity and quality have to go together. "As we increase the number of colleges, we will have to see to it that the quality of the education does not get diluted," he said.

The NMC, he added, was making its accreditation system robust to ensure faculty, infrastructure and clinical material standards. "In addition, we have undertaken a process of phydigital model where we are pushing our institution to embrace a new solution beyond physical education involving skill and virtual education to deal with competency based training and digital and e-learning solutions in order to achieve uniformity in medical training across the board," Dr Sheth explained.

He further stated that integration with private and public hospital networks was being sought for broadening access to clinical material. "We want to take this chance. to ensure that we are able to access improved clinical resources for the budding medical students," he continued, further stating that the NMC aimed at sticking to its plan of implementing the expected reforms.