Shaikh Khalifa College: Medical school, govt at odds over admissions

Dean says college will not follow UHS merit list, health secretary says it must.

LAHORE:

The Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Medical and Dental College (SKZMDC) Lahore intends to defy the Punjab government’s instruction to alter its admission policy and bring it in line with other public medical and dental colleges in the province.

The college is also determined not to change its fees, which are far higher than the fees at other public medical colleges, its administration said.

The college had been under the federal government’s control since 2009 but was turned over to the provincial government after the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. It set its own admission test and merit scores for entrance. It also had quotas for students from other provinces and for children of federal government employees.



“The college was run as an autonomous institution through its own funding. It had its own merit score, which was less than the open merit score, and the fee structure was also different from public medical colleges. We have decided to run it on the same pattern. We will not admit students on open merit. The matter of reducing fees is sub judice in the Lahore High Court,” SKZMC Dean and Chairman Professor Zafar Iqbal told The Express Tribune.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, in the admission policy for medical colleges for 2013-2014, abolished all the quota seats. Admissions to colleges administered by the provincial government are decided through a centralised test given by the University of Health Sciences.

The SKZMC administration, at a recent meeting, also decided not to change the college fees, the dean said. The college charges students Rs200,000 per year, while students at other public medical colleges pay less that Rs18,000 a year. The college has around 100 seats. Last year, when it was still under the federal government’s control, students were admitted to 60 seats on merit and the rest on quotas.

Prof Iqbal said he had met with the health secretary to discuss the matter and a committee had been formed for further discussions. “I and the health secretary are members and I will brief him on why students cannot be admitted on open merit,” he said.

The minimum score obtained by students admitted on merit to the SKZMC last year was 75.33 per cent, while the minimum for students admitted through the UHS was 84.2 per cent.

A UHS spokesman said that the university had been instructed to administer the admissions test for all medical colleges in the Punjab including the SKZMC.

He said that they would follow the Health Department’s policy.

Health Secretary Hassan Iqbal said all students would be admitted on open merit at the SKZMC. “They cannot decide their own admission policy and they cannot ignore the policy given by the Health Department. I will look into this, but this is certain, the students will be admitted on merit,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2013.