ISLAMABAD: Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal, on Monday, made it clear that no provisional licence would be granted to foreign medical students/graduates.

However, he added that as a one-time exception, students from institutions registered prior to the enactment of the PMDC Act would be allowed to appear in the upcoming National Registration Examination (NRE), scheduled for November 2025.

The minister was speaking at the National Assembly’s standing committee on health. The meeting was chaired by MNA Dr Mahesh Kumar Malani.

He said that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) had held detailed deliberations on the matter and decided that no provisional licences would be granted to foreign students.

It is worth mentioning that a large number of students, mostly after failing to get admissions in Pakistani medical colleges, get admissions in different countries which teach them in a language other than English. As they cannot be adjusted in the Pakistani market, PMDC has declared the NRE mandatory for them.

The PMDC informed that the examination portal would open one month before the scheduled date.

The members raised concerns over the honorarium policy at Polyclinic, pointing out that para-medical staff had been left out and that the criteria for granting honorarium had not been officially notified. The committee directed Polyclinic to share detailed data of all employees who had received honorarium, including the criteria followed.

The minister assured that new honorarium guidelines for 2025 had been approved and would be applied in the future.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Dr Shazia Sobia Aslam Soomro, Ms Sabheen Ghoury, Ms Zahra Wadood Fatemi, Ms Farah Naz Akbar, Dr Nikhat Shakeel Khan, Dr Darshan, Ms Aliya Kamran, Ms Farukh Khan and Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2025