Headlines for past two days- seats for sale in Tamil Nadu medical colleges. Media highlights the scam, governments swing into action (or show of action)
Any well informed medical student, can tell you where all you can use money to buy seats. As donations, as management quota, and sometimes as high fees. The phenomenon is not new and not uncommon. Lakhs of students study hard year over year to become a doctors, and our system only adds to their hardships. The no. of medical seats is low, half of them are reserved and then there is this unfair advantage to the rich. Definitely demotivating.
Now our system (government-media-other power centers) will pretend to solve the problem by addressing these individual cases. 'Pretend' because most of them are beneficiaries of the business, and the history of their modus-operandi (set up inquiry commissions to dampen things first, and later forget it all) makes us all hopeless. Some good Samaritans shall go further by asking for legislation against such practices.
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The real, workable solution is much simpler. Encourage private participation (investments) in medical education. Try public-private partnerships. Lower the entry barriers. Strengthen regulations to improve quality, but don't lay obstacles. Simply put, if Mr X wants to impart quality medical education with the aim of making money, allow him to do it.
The demand supply gap in medical education is huge, so seat-for-donation-quacks find buyers. Let the supply build, prices shall fall, people will have cheaper and better alternatives, and the market for the dishonest business shall die. Look at engineering education - its hard to find colleges asking similar donations. You might argue that setting up a medical college is far complex a job and needs far better expertise. My answer - do NOT underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. Just make him comply to quality, and even if that is tough, leave it to market too. The medical-education provider with better quality of learning, and reasonable pricing shall only survive.
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And there shall be another beneficiary to this - the Indian poor man.
(Remember there is just one doctor per 1700 people here, while the WHO recommends it to be 1:1000 in developing countries.)
Any well informed medical student, can tell you where all you can use money to buy seats. As donations, as management quota, and sometimes as high fees. The phenomenon is not new and not uncommon. Lakhs of students study hard year over year to become a doctors, and our system only adds to their hardships. The no. of medical seats is low, half of them are reserved and then there is this unfair advantage to the rich. Definitely demotivating.
Now our system (government-media-other power centers) will pretend to solve the problem by addressing these individual cases. 'Pretend' because most of them are beneficiaries of the business, and the history of their modus-operandi (set up inquiry commissions to dampen things first, and later forget it all) makes us all hopeless. Some good Samaritans shall go further by asking for legislation against such practices.
*
The real, workable solution is much simpler. Encourage private participation (investments) in medical education. Try public-private partnerships. Lower the entry barriers. Strengthen regulations to improve quality, but don't lay obstacles. Simply put, if Mr X wants to impart quality medical education with the aim of making money, allow him to do it.
The demand supply gap in medical education is huge, so seat-for-donation-quacks find buyers. Let the supply build, prices shall fall, people will have cheaper and better alternatives, and the market for the dishonest business shall die. Look at engineering education - its hard to find colleges asking similar donations. You might argue that setting up a medical college is far complex a job and needs far better expertise. My answer - do NOT underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. Just make him comply to quality, and even if that is tough, leave it to market too. The medical-education provider with better quality of learning, and reasonable pricing shall only survive.
*
And there shall be another beneficiary to this - the Indian poor man.
(Remember there is just one doctor per 1700 people here, while the WHO recommends it to be 1:1000 in developing countries.)
