KARACHI: A joint meeting of the Pakistan Medical Association, Dow Graduates’ Association and Dow Medical College Students Union on Friday [Sept 11] urged the West Pakistan Government to increase the number of seats in the Dow Medical College from 130 to 200. Of these, the meeting demanded, 90 per cent seats should be allocated to the students from Karachi area.

The meeting felt that the present number of seats in Dow Medical College were absolutely inadequate keeping in view the needs of Karachi. Every year, it said, there were about 2,000 applicants for admission to the college. Most of them have had bright academic records and deserve admission, but only a few of them could get into the college.

Last year about eight girl students who had secured first class in Intermediate Pre-Medical examination, were rejected. This state of affairs is highly undesirable as it entails waste of talent, leading to great frustration in the younger generation, the resolution said. It said: “This joint meeting is constrained to take note of the slow growth of medical facilities in the country. Since Partition the population of Karachi has risen from 3 to 25 lakhs, but there remains only one medical college in the city.”

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2014