LAHORE: The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has increased seats for Balochistan candidates in private medical and dental colleges and also allowed foreign national, dual national or overseas Pakistani students to get admissions against foreign/self-finance seats in private medical institutions.

A PMDC meeting, presided over by retired Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and attended by PMDC members and the registrar, also introduced certain amendments to MBBS and BDS admission, house job and internship regulations, according to the minutes of the meeting.

The council considered request by Prof Dr Shabir Ahmed Lehri, the Bolan Medical College principal and PMDC member, that the Balochistan students who scored low in the entry test could not get admission to private colleges out of Balochistan as the other provinces’ students obtained higher percentiles in admission tests.

“The council unanimously decided to allow one admission, over and above the allocated strength, to each private medical and dental college purely on merit”, says the document.

New SC-directed tuition fee only from 2018-19 session

This dispensation will be for three years from 2018-19 session. If no application is received to an institution against this quota, the seat will remain vacant. Furthermore, the decision of the PMDC’s 149th session held on Jan 14, 2017 to allow less than 60% of the marks in FSc will not be applicable to this dispensation.

The mandatory requirements for admission against these seats include the domicile of respective province/region/area, both matriculation and FSc to be from the respective province, 60% of the marks in FSc, residence certificate from the local authority or permanent residence certificate in case of Balochistan.

Private medical and dental institutions will get 25 and 12 more seats in Punjab alone in the wake of the amendment to MBBS & BDS Admissions, and House Job and Internship Regulations of 2018.

About foreign students, the PMDC decided that the condition of having physically studied abroad will be relaxed for the students admitted to FSc in the year 2018 and section 8(3) of the regulations will be applicable to students from session 2021-2022.

According to the PMDC, it allocated 10 percent of the quota of foreign/self-finance seats in every private medical and dental college all over the country.

Each candidate requiring admission against each allocated seat deposits tuition fee of $18,000 annually.

Regarding the applications being received and general queries from the public, the council considered the matter regarding clarification of annual tuition fee being charged by colleges under the newly introduced regulations, 2018.

The meeting discussed if Rs950,000 tuition fee was applicable only on those students who have yet to seek admission to MBBS/BDS in 2018-19 session or on all the students currently enrolled for MBBS/BDS studies.

The council ascertained that Rs950,000 tuition fee has been enforced vide the regulations of 2018, on the directions of the Supreme Court on Sept 17, and it is not applicable to those already in the academic session. The fee is applicable subsequent to the decision of Supreme Court of Pakistan on the session 2018-19 and on all classes with no retrospective effect.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2018