A large number of medical students have expressed their satisfaction over the restoration of previous status of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), terming it a good omen to safeguarding the future of medical and dental education in Pakistan.
According to them, during the era of Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) in the previous government tenure, mostly medical students remained under extreme stress due to inconsistency in policies of the past administration of the commission.
Similarly, they added, many students who participated in the MDCAT exam, had to face hardships due to faulty examination system and the attitude of administration of not addressing the genuine problems of aspirants due to which the MDCAT exam lost its efficacy. “We have to face errors in all process of MDCAT exam as even the answer keys were faulty and many brilliant students couldn’t get through, while many failed students were declared pass,” Atif Kaleem, a student said.
He said, due to this situation thousands of students got admissions abroad. Another medical student, Basit Khan said that the PMC conducted the entry test by arranging it through external testing authority, which resulted in depriving 55 percent of Sindh students from getting admission in medical and dental colleges.
He said that the capable students had been deprived of admissions as no criteria for awarding these marks were given to the colleges, and it was according to their whims and wishes that those students were selected on a faulty exam held by the PMC.
“Scams of millions of rupees are under inquiry against the PMC for giving contract to ghost companies, who were not even registered at the time of bidding,” he added. Salma Maroof, a mother of a medical student, said that the PMDC had capped the tuition fee of all local and international students from time to time while the PMC had given no fee bar. “Rather the PMC removed the cap on fee by allowing all the colleges to charge as per their wishes.” She said that the PMDC had prescribed minimum qualifications and experience required for teachers for appointment in medical and dental institutions while the PMC left the faculty on the mercy of the institutions. —APP
