Page 56 - EducationWorld May 2022

Cover Story EW India Private University Rankings 2022-23

India’s best private medical & prosecuted for corruption, and MCI

was abolished and replaced with the
life sciences universities National Medical Commission in
2020. But meanwhile, promotion
of greenfield medical colleges was
reduced to a trickle. The outcome
of an accentuating supply-demand
According to the National Medical Commission, the number imbalance was that a large number
of medical colleges countrywide aggregates a mere 562, of of aspiring medical practitioners en-
which 276 are privately promoted institutions, nowhere rolled in medical colleges in Malay-
sia, Russia, Ukraine and China which
near enough for a country with a population of 1.35 billion offer relatively affordable medical
education compared with Western
countries.
Given this history, it’s unsurpris-
ing that private medical colleges
which under rules and regulations
of the National Medical Commission
are obliged to maintain elaborate
infrastructure including fully-fledged
attached hospitals, tend to main-
tain a low public profile, especially
since their tuition fees are several
multiples of heavily subsidised
government medical colleges. With
government medical colleges inun-
dated with admission applications
and admitting a small percentage
of school-leavers who pass NEET
(National Eligibility-cum-Entrance
Test), the next best option is private
medical colleges with relatively
daunting fee structures.
Nevertheless while interviewing
SRIHER's Dr. Vijay Raghavan: biomedical engineering foray 4,105 sample respondents to rate the
country’s most well-reputed private
ne of the conspicuous fail- 50-60 million middle class house- higher education institutions includ-
ures of post-independence holds anxious for their progeny ing multidisciplinary, engineering,
India’s centrally planned to qualify as doctors of latter-day liberal arts and humanities universi-
OSoviet-inspired socialist allopathic medicine — there are a ties, field personnel of the Delhi-
economy in which private initiatives large number practising as doctors based market research and opinion
in higher education were rigidly of ayurvedic and unani medicine — polls company also persuaded the
controlled by the rents-extracting medical education in socialist India sample respondents to rate private
neta-babu (politician-bureaucrat) has a long history of scams and medical and life sciences universities
brotherhood, is the small number scandals. (of which they had sufficient knowl-
of medical and life sciences higher For almost a century, supervision edge) on ten parameters of medical
education colleges. According to the of medical education, accreditation and life sciences education, viz, com-
National Medical Commission, the of medical colleges and registration petence of faculty, faculty welfare
total number of medical colleges of medical practitioners was the and development, research and
countrywide as of May 2021 aggre- privilege of the Medical Council of innovation, curriculum & pedagogy
gates a mere 562, of which 276 are India (MCI) which after the mush- (incl. digital readiness), industry
privately promoted, nowhere near room growth of private medical col- interface, placements, infrastructure,
enough for a country with a popula- leges in the 1980s, became a byword internationalism, leadership and
tion of 1.35 billion. for corruption until its repeatedly range/diversity of programmes. The
With a large number of India’s elected president Ketan Desai was scores awarded by sample respon-

56 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2022