LAHORE, Jan 30: The Punjab Health Department has in consultation with the Economic Affairs and Statistics Ministry revised the provision of reserved seats for foreign students in all nine medical colleges in the province while accepting most applicants’ demand for admission to the King Edward Medical College, now a university.

Finalizing the admission of foreign students to the MBBS first year class under the foreign self-finance scheme in Punjab medical colleges for the session 2005-06 as a one-time dispensation, the department has approved that 10 reserved seats in the peripheral medical colleges should be shifted to medical colleges in Lahore.

The government has decided to shift nine seats to the KEMU and one seat to the Allama Iqbal Medical College to accommodate all the nominated students for the MBBS first year class session 2005-06.

It may be mentioned that the health department had notified the admission policy for all medical colleges in the province for the session 2005-06, which stated that 32 seats were reserved for foreign students under the self-finance scheme. The department had allocated four foreign self-finance scheme seats to each of all seven medical colleges and two seats each to the newly established Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), Lahore, and the Shaikh Zayed Medical College (SZMC), Rahim Yar Khan.

However, it was learnt, most applicants were demanding that they should be given admission to the King Edward Medical University (KEMU).

Consequently, the matter was examined in the department in consultation with the Economic Affairs and Statistics Ministry.

In order to resolve the issue while considering that most reserved seats might remain vacant if foreign students’ demand was not met, the Punjab government approved that as a one-time dispensation 10 seats of the peripheral medical colleges under foreign self-finance scheme be shifted to the medical colleges in Lahore. The government decided to shift nine seats to the KEMU and one seat to the Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC) to accommodate all the nominated students for the session 2005-06.

According to the revised provision of seats for session 2005-06, the KEMU was allocated 13 seats and the AIMC five seats. While two seats each were allocated to the Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Lahore; Nishtar Medical College, Multan; Rawalpindi Medical College; Punjab Medical College, Faisalabad; Quaid-i-Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur, SIMS, Lahore; and SZMC, Rahim Yar Khan.

In a notification issued in partial contravention of the admission policy for session 2005-06 here on Monday, the health department approved the admission of 27 students to different colleges. While, the admission of two foreign students each to the AIMC and FJMC as well as one admission to the NMC would be notified later.

The notification also said that these admissions would be subject to the condition that the students so admitted would pay the amount of self-finance fee as prescribed by the boards of management of the respective institutions in accordance with the approved policy for the session 2005-06.

The KEMC board of management has decided that each foreign student will pay $10,000 fee per annum.