LAHORE, Sept 3: A health authorities meeting held at the University of Health Sciences on Tuesday to review the tuition fee structure of Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Medical and Dental College, Lahore, agreed to a proposal for reserving 10 seats for ‘foreign students of self-finance scheme (FSF)’.

The development came three weeks before the date of the entrance test which is going to be held on Sept 22, an official privy to the information told Dawn.

Headed by Health Secretary Hasan Iqbal, the meeting was attended by additional secretary (Technical) Dr Anwar Janjua, Shaikh Zayed Hospital Chairman Prof Dr Zafar Iqbal and UHS Chairman Maj-Gen Prof Muhammad Aslam (retired).

The official said the decision was taken in order to create financial resources for the SKZMDC which had been facing an acute funds shortage since the Punjab government has taken over its administrative control from the cabinet division.

According to the proposal, he said, the institute would charge $10,000 annually as tuition fee from each foreign student. He said the health department would forward a summary to the chief minister within a couple of days for his final consideration. If the CM approves the summary, the total number of FSF seats will increase to 72 in Punjab.

Some leading public sector medical institutions of Lahore have been charging $10,000 annually from foreign students and those situated in districts $5,000 annually against each admission.

The Punjab government had already converted all the 100 seats of the SKZMDC into ‘open merit’ seats in the new admission policy for the 2013-14 session and a notification in this regard was issued in July this year. It had abolished 15 per cent reserved seats at SKZMDC including five allocated for the employees of the federal government and 10 reserved under FSF. Moreover, the government had reduced the tuition fee of the said institute from Rs400,000 to Rs200,000 in the admission policy.

The official said the fee structure of the SKZMDC had triggered a controversy and the health authorities had been facing immense pressure and criticism from the medical students for not ‘rationalising’ the fee for the ‘open merit’ students.He said the meeting discussed two major issues -- annual fee structure for local students and the allocation of seats for the foreign students.

The meeting observed that the SKZMDC had the most ‘odd’ fee structure in Punjab as it charged Rs475,000 per annum from each student, including Rs400,000 tuition fee Rs50,000 admission fee and Rs25,000 miscellaneous charges. Its annual fee was visibly different from the 20 other public sector institutions mentioned in the UHS prospectus for 2013-14 session.

According to the prospectus, the tuition fee and other miscellaneous charges for the 20 other institutions will be Rs18,030 for the MBBS and Rs18,050 for the BDS students.

The SKZMDC management took a stance in the meeting that the institute would have to bear an extra financial burden of Rs200 million annually under the head of education to students if the Punjab government reduced its fee and brought it down to that of other medical institutions.

The officials could not resolve the issue of ‘odd fee structure’ despite discussing it at length and postponed the meeting only after agreeing on allocation of 10 per cent seats for self-finance foreign students.