The Indian government launched Operation Ganga last week to bring back around 20,000 Indian nationals, mostly students, from Ukraine which has been invaded by Russia. It is in the light of this invasion that we have found out that a large chunk of these Indian students travel to Ukraine to study medicine. It is not only Ukraine but Russia, China and several countries across Asia where aspiring doctors travel to study medicine. Hence, it is important for us to understand the reasons why Indian students have to travel outside their country to achieve their dreams:
1. India has ver high demand for medical professonals. Therefore, a large number of students apply for admission to medical colleges but India faces severe short supply in the number of medical seats in the country.
2. As per the National Testing Agency, over 16 lakh aspirants registered to appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), country’s premiere medical entrance exam) in 2021. Around 50 percent or over 8.7 lakh students cleared the examination.
3. However, most of the students cannot find medical seats in the country as there are around 90,825 under-graduate medical seats in 605 medical colleges across the country, as per data provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
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4. Ever since the current Modi administration has assumed governance, the medical seats across the country have increased from 54,348 to 83,275 in 2020, as per the data provided by Union Minister of State for Health Bharati Pawar.
5. Half of the abovementioned seats, 43,435, are in government colleges and the rest are in private ones. The cost of fees for the UG medical course in a private college in India ranges between a whooping INR50-100 lakh, as per a report by The Hindu.
6. Majority of the medical seats are in Karnataka (9345), followed by Maharashtra (9000), Tamil Nadu (8000), UP (7428) and Telangana (5420).
7. Thousands of students travel abroad, such as Russia, Ukraine, China, Bangladesh, UAE, Nepal and Philippines to pursue medicine from foreign universities. After UG, return home to give the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) to get a license for practice.
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8. As per the FMGE 2021 result, total 23,349 aspirants appeared for the examination and around 5,665 of them passed the examination. The exams are held biannually. The next FMGE will be held in June 2022.
9. Most of the students who appeared in the FMGE from 2015 and 2018 were from Russia (11,697), Ukraine (8,021) and China (20,134). However, the percentage of students among those who passed the FMGE are 12.9, 14.9 and 11.7 respectively as per the National Board of Examinations (NBE).
10. Recently, Union Parliamentary Minister Prahlad Joshi on Tuesday said that around 90 percent of the students fail to clear the qualifying exams in India after studying abroad.
“90% of Indians who study medicine abroad fail to clear qualifying exams in India… (However) This is not the right time to debate why students are moving out to study medicine,” Minister Joshi said.
