Admissions delay: Private medical schools pocket millions

Hundreds of students to lose admission fees when they withdraw from private colleges.

LAHORE:

Private medical and dental colleges have pocketed around Rs24 million in non-refundable admissions fees because of the delay in the admissions process to public sector schools, The Express Tribune has learnt.

A Health Department official who monitors private schools said that over 400 students who had paid admissions fees to join private medical colleges had ended up on the merit list released on Tuesday and won places in public medical colleges. These students will most likely join the more prestigious public colleges and give up their places in the private colleges.

The admissions process to public medical colleges, which is handled by the University of Health Sciences (UHS), was supposed to be completed by October 31, but was stayed by the Lahore High Court as it heard petitions challenging the entry test. The petitions were dismissed on Tuesday and the UHS then published the merit list, which ranks candidates for medical schools according to academic achievement.

Private schools, under Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) rules, were not allowed to begin admissions until the process for public colleges was completed, the Health Department official said. This process was supposed to be completed by October 31, but was delayed by the LHC proceedings.

There are 2,200 medical seats in private colleges and 2,842 seats in public colleges in the Punjab.

Around 35,000 students sat the UHS entry test this year, of whom some 500 to 600 obtained scores of between 84 percent and 86 percent. Many of these students applied to private schools before the merit list was published, fearing they would not be on it and thus not get a place in a public medical college.

“Some 470 students who applied to private schools ended up making the merit list [the cutoff score was 85.15 per cent] and will now likely cancel their admissions to the private schools,” the Health Department official said.

The yearly fee for MBBS in a private medical college is about Rs700,000, of which Rs60,000-70,000 is for admission fees.

“The students who withdraw their admissions will lose this money and new students will be admitted in their place. So by starting admissions before the public sector medical schools completed theirs, the private schools stand to make millions,” he said.

But another official in the department’s technical wing which deals with medical education said that the UHS guidelines instructed private schools only not to start admissions before October 31.

“That was the date they were given,” the official said. “If the courts had not delayed the process because of legal challenges, the admissions at public colleges would have been completed by then. Technically, the private medical colleges did nothing wrong.”

A UHS spokesman said that it might discuss the matter with the PMDC. “It is true that hundreds of students will lose money due to this,” he said.

The principal of a private medical college said that the colleges had not broken any rules and had followed the PMDC and UHS instructions.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2011.