The Falling Standards of our Education System - Part 2 - Admissions in The Medical Stream

As a society, we - the people of Tamil Nadu, have always followed the results of 12th standard very keenly. The name of the person who gets the state first each year is remembered by almost everyone with no exception. While, we can say that it is a proud fact, this year sprung a lot of surprises, even to the general observer. The cut off of 200/200 is the dream cut off for any medical student. The number of students with 200/200 were only 9 in the year 2009 and 14 in 2010, whereas, in the current academic year, it is 65! Yes, almost an astonishing six fold increase since 2009. [1]



In Part 1 of this topic, the problems with engineering admissions was discussed in length. The way engineering and medical admissions differ are that there are 1,50,000 seats available for engineering, whereas, for medicine, there are only 1,653 government seats and 635 seats from self financing colleges are available. Also, to be noted is that for a middle class student, it is all the more preferable to aim to get a government college than a self financing one because the former charges 10,000 per year as tution fees whereas the latter charges about 2,50,000! Including hostel, mess and bus charges, this could be as high as 3 and a half lakhs per year, making the total cost of studying MBBS in a private medical college as high as 20 lakhs! Phew!

From the table [1], it can be seen that, in 2010, to get a seat in a government medical college one needed a cut off around 195. But in 2011, even a cut off of 197 does not guarantee a medical seat under a government medical college. Even seats of private medical colleges threaten to be filled up even before the cut off of 196, but due to the high cost of studying in private colleges for medicine, not many may opt for it and it could be available till a cut off of 190.


Thankfully, unlike engineering colleges which have sprouted all over the state in the last few years, the central government has been strict to grant permission for new medical colleges and hence, the standard of medical education is not as spoilt. But, the biggest problem concerning medical admissions this year is the increase of cut offs as much as 2.5 marks. This obviously resulted from the fact that the correction had not been tough. Else, how can you possibly explian almost a doubling in the number of students for a cut off of more than 195 from the last year?

In sum, medical education is not as spoiled as engineering is. But a variety of factors from easy question papers to canellation of entrance exams to easy correction has lead to a crowding of students in the cut-off 195 to 200 range.

The discomforting factor is that if a hardworking student had scored 195 and could still not get a medical college, how dejected would he/she be? For this precise reason, the government should bring back the medical entrance at least. Let us hope that it does!

References:

[1]. "Cut-off marks for medicine courses in the Tamil Nadu up by 1.5 to 2 marks"
http://www.thehindu.com/education/article2004505.ece