Teacher-student ratio; more PG med seats in offing

The pool of post-graduate medical seats in the state will increase for the 2020-21 academic year as the Medical Council of India (MCI) has amended the existing rules and revised the teacher-student ratio.

With the new amendments, MCI has given an opportunity even for the private medical colleges which are functioning for 15 years to maintain the same teacher-student ratio as in government medical colleges. With this, the earlier teacher-student ratio of 1:1 has been revised to 1:3.

Following the revised ratio, the colleges need to submit fresh applications to affiliating universities seeking enhancement of seats. As per the information available from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), Bengaluru, some of the private medical colleges have already applied and got enhancement too.

400 more seats

Dr Sachidanand, vice-chancellor, RGUHS, said, “We are receiving applications from private medical colleges seeking enhancement based on the revised teacher-student ratio. As per our estimation, for the coming academic year, there will be over 400 more PG medical seats available for admission.” However, the private medical colleges which are getting an enhancement of seats have to share seats with the government and this will benefit students aspiring to get PG medical seats under government quota.

“Even the government medical colleges will get more seats and some of them have already applied,” said an official from the state department of medical education.

Areas of shortage

According to experts, this revision is basically to overcome the shortage of specialists in some of the areas, including anaesthesiology, radiation oncology, psychiatry and forensic medicine and toxicology.

Dr Balakrishna P Shetty, vice-chancellor, Sri Siddartha University, Tumakuru, said, “There is a severe shortage of specialists in some areas and this revision of teacher-student ratio will help to overcome the same in future. This will also add thousands of PG seats at the national level.”

Dr P G Girish, director department of medical education, said, “Earlier, the teacher-student ratio was 1:1 and for government colleges, it was revised a few months ago. The same has now been extended to private colleges with 15 years of functioning. This will definitely increase the number of PG medical seats in the state.”