Favouring a common entrance test for undergraduate and post-graduate courses in medical colleges across the country, the newly-constituted Board of Governors of MCI on Tuesday said it has approached the CBSE to work out modalities for introduction of the system from next year.
The Board, which was reconstituted after dissolution of the corruption-hit Medical Council of India, has already approached private medical colleges with the proposal which in turn have agreed to it.
"We hope to have a common entrance test by next academic session...Next time when we meet, we will be able to announce the dates also," S K Sarin, head of the Board, told reporters.
He said a single entrance test would substantially reduce the stress level of the students, who, under the current system, have to sit for seven tests for getting admission in medical colleges.
The Board has already approached the CBSE to formulate the details for conducting such a test, replacing all other exams that are conducted for admission into government as well private medical colleges in the country.
"We have already contacted the CBSE. It will decide how to go about it, including the syllabus. The test will cover all government, private and even minority institutions," Sarin said.
Admission tests are conducted yearly for nearly 32,000 undergraduate seats and 13,000 post graduate seats in medical colleges across the country.
"This will ensure that the students are not stressed out. Under the current system, they have appear in more than seven entrance tests for getting admission. After the new system is introduced, the students will have to appear in only one test," said Devi Shetty, one of the members of the Board.
He said a minority medical institution can have minority quota or a private college can have management quota but the seats reserved for such quota will have to be filled up on the basis of merit. Shetty said the Government needs to build another 100 medical colleges to shore up medical education in the country.
"Medical education should be the domain of the health ministry," Sarin said adding that the most pressing problem as of now was the lack of teachers in medical colleges.
When asked whether he knew about the HRD ministry's proposal to conduct joint entrance tests for engineering and medicine, he said, "we have no information about the HRD ministry's proposal".
The panel, Sarin said, has constituted 13 working groups to delve into various aspects of medical education. Out of these, two groups working on post-graduate and undergraduate medical curriculum would submit their reports by July three.
Every weekend, top professionals are invited to debate on the need assessment for the medical sector. The need assessment is also being done for speciality and super-speciality courses.
Sarin said the panel was contemplating introducing an exit examination on the lines of that for Chartered Accountants.
The six-member panel, which replaced the MCI, has assessed all the colleges which had applied for re-registration and the 15 new colleges which applied for recognition.
The panel has also introduced a system of online registration of all faculty members in medical colleges across the country. "This will be done within 72 hours," Sarin said.
He said there were also efforts to make registration in the Indian Medical Register online.
About the ongoing CBI probe into the MCI scam, he said a team is being sent with the CBI investigators wherever they are going. PTI
