PESHAWAR: The health department’s directive to withdraw one of the two allowances from the teachers of basic medical science departments of the public sector medical colleges is likely to hit the students hard as the teachers are weighing options to quit their jobs and join private colleges where they are in great demand, according to sources.

A letter, issued by the health department to the deans of eight public sector medical colleges, has asked the teachers of basic sciences to either opt for health professional allowance or retain the teaching allowance.

In 2007, the health department announced monthly allowances of Rs50,000, Rs40,000, Rs30,000 and Rs10,000 for the professors, associate professors, assistant professors and lecturers, respectively, to stop brain drain and save the medical colleges from being derecognised by Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), the regulator of medical education in the country.

Students likely to suffer as faculty will opt to join private medical college

PMDC accords recognition to new medical colleges on the strength of the faculty of medical science teachers. The Higher Education Commission evaluates the strength of basic teachers while according approval for degree programmes.

The measure was aimed at retaining the services of these teachers and stopping them from joining private colleges where they had offers of triple salaries. The allowance was too little and the doctors continued to switch over to private colleges. However, many declined the offer of private colleges arguing that they wanted to serve the government-owned institutions.

The teachers of basic sciences usually bank on their salaries because they don’t do private practice as opposed to the clinical teachers, who earn a bulk of their income from private practice. During the past few years, the basic sciences departments at the government medical colleges have suffered immensely and several colleges are at risk of de-recognition in case of inspection by PMDC to check the strength of their faculties.

Basic medical sciences including anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, forensic medicines, toxicology, pathology, community medicine and pharmacology are taught to medical students from the first to fourth year while they study clinical subjects only in the final year.

Therefore, for any medical college, it is mandatory to have complete faculties of basic sciences to be able to get recognised by the PMDC.

Basic sciences are foundation for the best clinicians and resignation by senior teachers in the past has affected the students. This time too, many teachers are going to quit. There are seven private medical colleges in Peshawar that have absorbed all the basic science teachers, who have either resigned or have gone on premature retirement. These colleges would readily accept more teachers.

Khyber Medical College and Khyber Girls Medical College (KGMC) Peshawar, and medical colleges in Bannu, Mardan, Swat, Swabi, Kohat and Dera Ismail Khan are still short of teachers. If government doesn’t withdraw the directive, it would badly affect those colleges. If the directive is implemented, Each of the teachers would lose an amount of Rs40,000 to Rs60, 000 a month, which they cannot afford.

Senior teachers said that that the then government in 2012 had also attempted to withdraw the allowance but Peshawar High Court ruled that incentives given to the employees couldn’t be withdrawn. The association of the teachers is planning to challenge it in the court.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2019