With each day passing by the relationship between Russia and Ukraine has been deteriorating. While the majority of the western countries have been imposing sanctions on Russia for its transgression, India has maintained a balanced stance over the ongoing war. Some countries have been lauding India for its 'balanced' stance while some have been asking New Delhi to clear its position over the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Amidst India's hazy stance over the Russia-Ukraine war, New Delhi has been crystal clear that its top priority, for now, is the evacuation of stranded Indians including students.
Amidst all these chaos both on-ground and in diplomacy, the Russia-Ukraine war has indeed highlighted one major problem of India i.e. Indian students opting for foreign countries for medical education. As per moneycontrol, Ukraine has been one of the prominent choices for Indian students to study medical education. In fact, Indian students in thousands go to foreign for medical education, and among them, 20,000 were in Ukraine.
The stranded Indians in Ukraine indeed touched the nerves of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who sent an SOS to private players to jump into medical education sector. Speaking after inaugurating a webinar on the Union budget announcements on the health sector, PM Modi had suggested that state governments should formulate good policies for land allotment for medical education so that India could produce a large number of doctors and paramedics to fulfill even global demand. Not only this, but PM Modi had also urged private players to dive into India's expanding medical education sector. Prime Minister Modi had also queried that despite the language barrier why the Indian students prefer to study in foreign countries in the medical education sector.
As the Ukraine crisis has sent an SOS call to India's medical education sector, let's have a look at why Indian students fly to foreign to fulfill their dreams in medical sector:
A low number of seats in MBBS & other 'harsh reality'
Now, those who are wondering why Indian students go to foreign to fulfill their dreams in the medical sector can read further. As per the Medical Council of India, the top regulatory body of medical education in India, there are 605 medical colleges with a total of 90,825 MBBS a year. However, there are 1.6 million students wrote the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for MBBS admissions in 2021. Mathematically it means there are 16 candidates for a single seat for MBBS.
Another harsh reality is parents with deep pockets buy a seat for their children in private medical colleges in crores. It is well-known that if a student does not manage to secure a ‘merit’ seat in a government medical college, the parents will end up spending anywhere between Rs 50 lakh-1 crore on medical education in a private institution.
A relatively cheaper & qualitative medical education in foreign
After a lower number of seats and selling of seats in private college, the option to pressure medical education in foreign comes in. Indian students prefer countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, China, the Philippines, and Trinidad & Tobago for medical education. In fact, approx 20,000 students leave India every year to study medicine despite the language barrier. Apart from a qualitative study, these foreign countries provide medical education at one-third rate as compared to private medical colleges of India.
It is pertinent to mention here that upon returning to India, students have to pass Foreign Medical Graduate Examination, which is effectively a licensure test for practicing medicine in the country. Earlier, the rate of students failing in such exams was high, however with time passing by the number has come down.
'Low' Doctor-population ratio
Apart from such factors, the doctor-population ratio in India is 0.9 per thousand population, which is slightly less than the 1 per thousand recommended by the World Health Organization. There is also a huge disparity between rural and urban areas in terms of access to quality medical care. Therefore, India needs more doctors, and they should be incentivised to serve in rural areas. This is only possible through capacity augmentation for medical education.