By Dinesh Pundir
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If India can make its own fighter jet, its own spacecrafts and even carry others’ satellites into orbits, if India can make a budget Mars craft, moon lander, rover, then it can certainly make world class cars and high speed trains that ferry people on land, and it can definitely make its own smartphones and apps. Indian companies, including the higher education providers, need to figure out ways to market their brands to make them global household names, and this, of course, requires correct, unbiased, sincere, and nationalistic policies of the government.
Unfortunately, India has not yet tapped into the huge global market of foreign students who can be persuaded to come to India for an affordable and quality higher education. This untapped market comprises all of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the CIS countries. India should aim to become a preferred or most favoured destination for international students especially from these countries. This will create a new ‘education export’ industry in India, which would be far bigger than the international tourism industry that India has traditionally relied upon.
If some of our politicians who are major investors in India's education system and education mafias can become education messiahs by letting go of their greed, then indeed, India too can be an affordable and quality education hub for both domestic and international students, especially in the medical field. Besides investor greed, other factors, which make medical education in India beyond the reach of a million plus aspirants, are paucity of medical schools and high cost of private medical education because of needless and mandatory huge infrastructure requirements for a medical college, which result in exorbitant fees charged by the private medical schools in India. As a result, for decades, a large number of Indian students have been going abroad for affordable medical education. Yet our biased system, for the stakes of some interested parties, makes it difficult for them to practice in India. It is biased as well as preposterous because, on one hand, we need competent professionals in a field that is concerned with saving citizens’ lives but we have reservations (quotas) in this field.
However, by the same logic of saving citizens lives (national security) as the top priority, there are no reservations (quotas) in the Indian armed forces (I am not against time-bound reservations in other non-critical fields, although they could be economic criteria-based rather than caste-based). Hence, corrective measures are required to address these anomalies. This will also resolve the issue of acute shortage of quality medical professionals in India.
Presently, there are some proposed changes to this decades old practice, like NEXT (National Exit Test), which will make it a level playing field for all medical graduates from Indian and foreign universities both. This exit test will ensure that only good doctors get the license to heal, provided NEXT should not have reserved category concessions in qualifying marks because that will again defeat the purpose of ensuring quality doctors in the workforce for which NEXT is being implemented in the first place.
India's medical education policy has been incoherent. It has not evolved suitably with the changing times, and as a result, there has been a shortage of doctors in the currently second most populated country in the world. Since 2019, and more so, after the recent creation of NMC (National Medical Commission) with its draconian and biased regulations regarding foreign medical education, India will continue to face the scarcity of doctors in the coming decades considering the fact that for more than one million aspiring doctors there are presently only around 100,000 medical seats in India. (In 2021, a record 1.5 million candidates appeared for NEET-UG exam). NMC contends that it wants to ensure that only proficient doctors are allowed to practice in India as the medical field is concerned with the safety of human lives. However, merit and competency is still being compromised while creating a dearth of doctors by discouraging affordable foreign medical education.
Oddly, India has always considered Russian medical education not on par with that of US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, while it (India) is a major importer of Russian defence equipment, which too are intended to save Indian lives. Russian technology in space, defence, medicine, and many other areas is better than that of the US since the early 60s. It was the first country in the world to launch an artificial earth satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957, and the first to send a manned spaceflight in 1961, and it is still a world superpower. Incidentally, it was also the first country to develop and register a covid-19 vaccine, Sputnik V in August 2020.
If qualifying dispensation is granted to a reserved category in NEXT, then it will defeat the very purpose for which NEXT was conceptualised, which is to ensure excellence in the life-saving medical field.
Following a befuddled, and of late, a more rigid medical education policy, it denies a fundamental right to affordable professional education to all citizens.
Therefore, until we have enough quality and affordable medical colleges that can fulfil the huge local medical education demand, curtail doctors shortage, as well as offer seats to foreign students, the government needs to be flexible with foreign-trained Indian medical graduates. After all, we cannot kill students’ aspirations to become doctors, and neither can we kill patients by not having enough doctors for them.
Hence, ideally, besides creating more affordable medical colleges in India, NEET and some tough sections of the recently introduced FMG Licentiate Regulations 2021, should not be a prerequisite for medical aspirants seeking admission into WHO and local ‘regulatory authority’ approved medical colleges abroad. Clearing NEXT followed by an internship in India is sensible enough to grant them a license to practice as doctors.
On the other hand, overseas education providers need to be flexible if they want a share of the huge Indian market for foreign education. If they can have different fees structure – it is higher for international students – then they can also design a different curriculum structure for them to fulfil the mandatory requirements of their home country. Therefore, to fill the demand and supply gap in India's medical education, the foreign medical education providers must seriously consider adapting to the new regulations of NMC. After all, they cannot afford to lose a big market that India is.
However, globally open trade cannot be a one-way traffic; Indian education regulatory norms must be reciprocal for foreign students coming to India for higher education including the medical field. Our education providers and regulatory bodies must also comply with other countries’ education policies and requirements. We must give recognition to their educational institutions if we want them to give recognition to our institutions. Only then, we can make India a favourite destination for international students as it used to be in the ancient times, when students from all over the world used to come to study here, especially at Nalanda and Takshashila University. India was then known as vishwa guru (world teacher); there is no reason why it cannot again become one.
Therefore, in the larger interest of the country, the government should not make it difficult for Indian students to study abroad, especially in the medical field because presently we do not have enough medical colleges to cater to a huge demand for the medical degree. Moreover, the other countries would do the same, they will make it tough for their students to study in India. In such a scenario, it would be hard for India to become a popular education hub for international students. It is noteworthy that, for the past few decades, international students have become an important source of revenue for world’s major economies like US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, China, Singapore, and even smaller CIS countries. Lamentably, India, despite having good colleges and varsities is not doing much to tap into this important source of foreign exchange revenue.
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