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Cure for an ailing education system?

G. Srinivasan

RARELY do Parliamentary Committees take up issues of genuine public interest that also exert a crucial bearing on posterity, though the country's judiciary has been active in espousing public causes.

In the winter session of Parliament, a report of the House Panel on Human Resource Development on Medical Education was tabled.

However, nobody seemed to show an iota of interest in highlighting its contents that focussed on the glaring deficiencies in the medical education system.

Both the electronic and print media too ignored this report.

For aspiring doctors burning the midnight oil just to be among the privileged few to get into the medical colleges even as they go the whole hog in preparing for the final examination of the senior secondary education, the observations of the House Panel ought to lift their spirits.

Parents of prospective medical students should know how harassed they remain till their wards secure a seat in one of the medical colleges.

Though the House Panel report is comprehensive on the different facets of medical education, a few points need to be put in proper perspective.

Entrance tests for admissions to the MBBS course is for three categories -- test conducted by respective States, that by the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) for 15 per cent seats, and by premier national institutions such as AIIMS, JIPMER, AFMC, BHU, Aligarh Muslim University and Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha.

The practical problems and inconvenience faced by students (and their parents) appearing for a number of entrance tests every year in all three categories are exacerbating both to the parents and the students.

The Committee should ideally call for a uniform entrance test encompassing all the medical colleges -- government and private.

But due to the variegated patterns of secondary level education in different States, the Committee recognises the difficulties in this regard and asks both the Centre and the Medical Council of India to scan the issue so that the number of entrance tests is reduced to the extent possible.

In its interaction with faculty members and experts, it was repeatedly emphasised that only motivated and committed students should be selected for medical courses.

Considering the objectives of medical education, the aptitude of the student is important.

Thus, a mechanism, such as an aptitude test, to assess the prospective student's yen for the medical profession is needed. The report makes critical remarks on NRI quota in Government and private medical colleges, on the examination procedure and the mus hrooming of medical colleges with no matching infrastructure to the due skills to practitioners, prodding the authorities to pay attention to the most significant aspect of a profession on whose wholesome practice the lives of millions depend.