LAHORE:
Students and teachers of public medical colleges have objected to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s (PMDC) decision to abolish pass/fail in the entry test, arguing that it will result in a drop in standards.
All students wishing to gain admission to a public or private medical college must sit the entry test. Previously, students could only gain admission to private colleges if they had passed the entry test. Now that this condition has been abolished, say critics of the new rules, less qualified candidates will be able to get into private schools. They say the new rules are meant to boost the private colleges’ profits, not medical education.
Representatives of private schools argued that the rule changes would not lead to a drop in standards. They said that the rule changes were made following due procedure and were made in the general interests of medical education.
The PMDC has also changed the way in which the merit list, which ranks students by their academic test scores, is calculated. Previously, the merit score was calculated using a formula giving 70 per cent weight to the student’s FSc marks and 30 per cent to the entry test. From this year, the formula gives 50 per cent weight to the entry test, 40 per cent to FSc and 10 per cent to matric.
“This will surely affect the standards of medical education in Pakistan,” said Allama Iqbal Medical College Lahore principal Dr Javed Akram of the entry test passing condition. “I think the PMDC should get some feedback from the provinces and review their decision.”
“This will just help private medical colleges where all those who have 60 per cent marks in FSc can get admission even after failing the entry test,” said Shafiqur Rehman, registrar of Sargodha Medical College.
Pakistan Medical Association joint secretary Dr Salman Kazmi said the association would move court against the decision to abolish pass/fail. “The PMDC has become the Private Medical and Dental Council,” he said.
“It’s not difficult to score 60 per cent in FSc. The sons of the rich and powerful will sit their inter exams with some lenient boards, appear in the entry test and then be able to get admission to any private medical college. This will devastate the quality of medical education,” said Dr Kazmi.
Muhammad Saleem, whose daughter Qurratul Ain scored 772 marks in her matric exams and 950 in FSc in 2010 but couldn’t get enough on the entry test to gain admission, said the rule changes would benefit rich students rather than good ones. “The PMDC is doing it just to favour the rich. This should not be done,” he said.
Medical student Afzal said he had had to repeat the entry test to get admission to a medical school. “Now if you can get admission to a private medical college without passing the entry test then there shouldn’t be any test at all. It will discourage those who pass the entry test but cannot afford private school,” he said.
Prof Akram said that the PMDC’s executive council was now dominated by representatives of private colleges and they had pushed through the decision to change the rules.
The executive council consists of representatives of all the medical institutions in the country. Currently, it has 30 representatives from public medical colleges and eight from public dental colleges, and 40 representatives from private medical colleges and 19 from private dental colleges.
“The private medical colleges vote for decisions that favour them, not for what is good for medical education or the students,” said Rehman, the SMC registrar. He said there had been a huge growth in private medical education since self-finance seats were abolished in public medical colleges.
Professors at private colleges said that the rule changes would not necessarily lower standards and it was up to the colleges themselves to maintain them. “The entry test is not a qualifying exam,” said Sharif Medical and Dental College Lahore principal Professor Nasib Awan. “It’s just a test that grades you to get admission to some high or low ranked institution. The qualifying exam is FSc. All students who are admitted to private medical colleges will have a first division. Private medical colleges are autonomous bodies and they make their own merit.”
Awan said that the government had created the current structure for medical education whereby private schools got the “leftover” students. “If you want true uniformity then there should be a national formula. With provincial formulas there will be problems because people will always say that it’s easy to do FSc from one board and difficult from another,” he said.
Dr Ifran Mughal, head of anatomy at the Independent Medical College Faisalabad and the college’s representative on the PMDC’s executive council, said that abolishing pass/fail in entry tests would not affect medical education.
PMDC registrar Dr Ahmed Akbar said private medical colleges had a majority on the executive council, but they made decisions in the interest of their profession and its practitioners, not the schools.
He said that the PMA and other bodies had no say in setting the conditions for MBBS and BDS admissions. “They can say what they like,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 5th, 2011.
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