Dear Editor,
Russia-Ukrainian War has also brought our country face to face with the fact that about 20,000 of our students are studying in Ukraine; About 18,000 of them have gone on to study MBBS, i.e., medical education. The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that the Union government has asked its ministers to travel to neighboring countries so that students can be brought to India through neighboring countries. Diplomatic experts have raised a number of questions about the Government’s delay; first is why the students were not brought back when it was being estimated at the diplomatic level that the chances of war were very high; the negligence is at the diplomatic and diplomatic level; second, even with clouds of war looming, solid arrangements were not made; students who returned to the country were charged many times more. MBBS students in Ukraine have to come to India and pass Medical Council of India (MCI) exam. It is estimated that 4,000 students from Ukraine take test each year, but very few pass. Despite this, thousands of students from India enroll in Ukrainian universities. There are two main reasons for this, first, the cost of education in medical, engineering and other fields there is far less than in private sector educational institutions in India and secondly, students do not need to take a separate test for admission.
Why do our students go to study in these small countries? Referring to medical education, he also questioned whether the private sector could not solve this problem by investing heavily in medical education. Government of India also blamed the state governments for not providing cheap land for setting up medical colleges. Health experts are of view that the root cause of the problem is failure of governments to set-up medical colleges in the public sector. In many states cheap land has been provided for private sector hospitals and medical colleges but these hospitals and colleges are out of reach of the common man. Private hospitals, medical and engineering colleges have flourished over the decades, but they have also exacerbated the problem. Medical colleges differ from other educational institutions in that they have to have large hospitals attached to them. In addition to the recall of students from Ukraine, the government needs to pay special attention to the field of education, especially medical education besides investing heavily in the field.
Vijay Garg.