Long overdue: Body to discuss expatriate quota in medical colleges

7-member committee to submit its recommendations to Health Dept in 10 days.

LAHORE:

The Health Department on Friday formed a seven-member committee to formulate recommendations for allocation of seats for oversees Pakistanis in medical and dental colleges of the province.

The committee will submit its report within 10 days to the department, which will then allocate the special seats for oversees Pakistanis, a senior Health Department official told The Express Tribune.

The members of the committee are: the King Edward Medical University vice chancellor (VC), the University of Health Sciences VC, the health secretary, the finance secretary, Parliamentary Committee on Health member MPA Rana Liaquat and MPA Dr Nadia Aziz. Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Khwaja Salman Rafique is the committee chairman.

Currently, there are no special seats for oversees Pakistanis in the medical and dental colleges of the Punjab. The issue was raised in a story published in The Express Tribune on May 1, 2014.

According to Health Department record, public sector medical colleges in the Punjab have 161 seats reserved for foreign students – 144 for MBBS and 17 for BDS.

However, none of these seats are for oversees Pakistanis. Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have reserved special seats for overseas Pakistanis in public sector medical colleges.

“The issue of having no medical seats for overseas Pakistanis was recently discussed at the Overseas Pakistani Foundation conference. There are 3.7 million overseas Pakistanis living in the Gulf and other countries, including 1.6 million in Saudi Arabia, 1.2 million in the United Arab Emirates, 0.2 million in Oman and 0.15 million in Kuwait. Many people argue that it is discriminatory to give special seats to foreigners but not to overseas Pakistanis,” another Health Department official told The Express Tribune.

Currently, there are two categories of seats for foreign students in public medical colleges in the Punjab. Over 72 students are registered in different medical colleges of the province under the Pakistan Technical Assistance (PTA) programme. These students pay the same fees as other Pakistani students do. The rest of the seats are offered under the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) foreign self-finance scheme. Under this programme, 72 seats are reserved and the fee is between $5,000 and $10,000.

“The 72 seats under the PTA programme are filled every year by students from friendly foreign countries or by Pakistani citizens with dual nationalities. However, no one applies for the other 72 seats that are available on the self-finance basis. They remain vacant,” said the official.

“Those people who are born in countries such as the US, UK, Canada, Germany and Ireland to Pakistani parents get the nationalities of these countries. They are treated as foreigners and get admission on the seats reserved for foreigners in medical colleges. However, a large number of Pakistanis living in the Gulf and other countries cannot get admission on these seats because they never get the citizenship of these countries. Now the committee will review the whole situation and give recommendations to change the policy for facilitating overseas Pakistanis,” the official said.

MPA Rana Liaquat told The Express Tribune that the committee would try to facilitate the overseas Pakistanis. “They (overseas Pakistanis) always help the country in time of need. Even now, they are contributing generously to help the internally displaced people (IDPs). We will recommend allocation of special seats for them in the medical colleges,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2014.