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| Thursday, April 03, 2008
“Revise medical college teacher-student
ratio”
Health Secretary Subburaj wants MCI to allow faculty to be shared
by many institutions
CHENNAI: Revising the teacher-student ratio in medical colleges
is essential to meet the huge demand of doctors in the country,
Health Secretary V.K.Subburaj said on Wednesday.
Setting the agenda for discussion during the second All-India
Health Sciences University Vice-Chancellors Conference (VC-CON
2008) organised by the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University,
he said capacity (in the medical profession) could be created
only when the Medical Council of India rules and regulations
were changed.
One of the key issues with medical education was the dearth
of faculty, thanks to the MCI norms on the student-teacher
ratio. In some subjects, the recommendation is a 1:1 ratio.
Mr.Subburaj recommended that the ratio be revised to 1:5 or
1:10.
The MCI should also allow faculty to be shared by many institutions.
“Classroom training has to undergo a drastic change.
There can be virtual classrooms, as is being done in engineering
colleges. This will also help to overcome the shortage of
teaching staff”.
The Health Secretary was appreciative of the fact that work
on syllabus revision to bring it to international standards,
had been started, but deplored the lack of emphasis on research.
He also pointed to the inadequacy of the number of medical
teaching institutions in the country.
There were only 271 medical colleges, and their distribution
was also skewed, with 163 colleges functioning in the southern
States of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and
Maharashtra and Puducherry. This inequity was reflected in
quality and access to medical care.
“More doctors needed”
N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu, also emphasised the need
to increase the number of doctors in the country. He highlighted
the striking contrast between the engineering and medical
streams: there were 800 private engineering colleges in the
four southern States as against 271 medical colleges in the
entire country. Medical education had not been able to produce
the human resources to meet even minimal demands, with the
doctor-population ratio standing at 1:5000.
This was an unacceptable situation, particularly if one looked
at the state of public health in rural India.
The policies of the MCI were obviously in the way of increasing
the number of medical professionals, but changes must be made
while preserving high standards. Mr. Ram urged the Vice-Chancellors
to work out strategies to remedy the situation.
Health Minister MRK Panneerselvam said the State accorded
an important status to medical education and was working towards
setting up one government medical college in each district.
It was increasing the capacity by adding medical colleges
every year.
Meer Mustafa Hussain, Vice-Chancellor, TN Dr.MGR Medical University,
called for creating more medical universities and colleges.
For the first time, the university received grants from the
University Grants Commission and would plough much of it into
research.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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