Exodus of medical students is due to multiple factors, says report

Anand Rathi Research Anand Rathi Advisors report has suggested that Indian medical students are choosing to study abroad due to many issues here in India, read here to get the details.

A report by Anand Rathi Research Anand Rathi Advisors on medical education said many issues including lack of standardisation of fees, quota reservations, infrastructural challenges and a sub-optimal college-student ratio, are triggering an exodus of students to foreign universities. 

The demand for medical education in the country would persist and key changes would be required to eliminate the system’s bottlenecks, added the report.

Samir Bahl, chief executive officer for investment banking, Anand Rathi Advisors, said, “The return of Indians studying MBBS in Ukraine has highlighted the growing shortage of MBBS seats in India, despite the government’s best efforts to ramp up capacity over the years. We reckon that private sector participation in the medical education industry needs to increase significantly for the admission scenario to improve in India,” as reported by The Print.

The report provides a detailed view covering every component ranging from government schemes and incentives, fee structures, nature of admission programmes, growth of coaching centres, changes in admission dynamics on the advent of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, etc.

More reasons behind exodus of medical students

As per the report, one of the main reasons why a large number of medical students are going abroad is that there is limited competition in foreign universities, which makes the seats easily accessible and cheaper than studying in India. However, in India, there is a limited number of medical seats with a high threshold required for government medical colleges and a high cost of medical education in private medical colleges. China, Ukraine, the Philippines and Russia account for 60% of the student outflow from India.

Upon completing medical studies at foreign universities, these candidates are required to appear for a screening test – the foreign medical graduates examination – to be eligible for a licence to practise in India.

Read more:

• NMC releases FAQs on Foreign Medical Graduates from Ukraine and China
• NMC Academic Mobility: Ukraine returned medicos can apply to only 3 universities