PESHAWAR: Medical and dental colleges in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are producing far more graduates than the government vacancies, spreading frustration among young doctors.

The province had 20 medical and 11 dental colleges in the public and private sectors, producing around 2,900 graduates every year, according to the Khyber Medical University, the only admitting university for those institutions.

The KMU conducts the Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) on behalf of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council every year.

The MBBS seats in the private sector’s 10 medical and five dental colleges total 1,454, while the tally of students from 10 medical and six dental colleges in the private sector goes to 1,425, according to officials of the health department.

They told Dawn that those securing top positions on the “merit list” after MDCAT went to public colleges where the annual fee was “somewhat affordable.” The officials said many of those having money got admission in private colleges after failing to secure seats in public medical colleges and pay around Rs2 million tuition and other fees a year.

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They insisted that a private student spent around Rs10 million as the admission fee in private medical and dental colleges but the number of jobs in government and private sectors was “shrinking.”

The data obtained from the health department’s Health Sector Reforms Unit showed that the province had over 2,500 health facilities, including 2,438 primary care centres and 128 category A, B, C and D hospitals, including district headquarters hospitals, with 90, 000 staff members, including 8,052 medical officers, 561 management cadre doctors and 662 dental surgeons.

The doctors complained about the unplanned medical colleges, which, they said, are producing around 2,900 graduates every year but there were only a dozen of posts advertised by the department, so the number of jobless medics was increasing.

They also said more and more medical and dental graduates were coming in from China and Central Asian countries every year, aggravating the job crisis.

The doctors claimed that last June, 81pc candidates couldn’t pass the written test conducted by the Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency for the vacant slots of medical officers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

They said the Etea held tests of 8,974 students but only 1,766 of them remained successful.

The doctors said the unsuccessful candidates had to opt for the private sector jobs.

A doctor said that he spent more than Rs15 million to become a doctor from a private medical college but was getting Rs40,000 salary in a private hospital after graduation and that he wasn’t allowed to take leave during the two-month probation period.

He insisted that some graduates were being paid Rs50,000 to Rs75,000 a month.

Experts demanded that the government and regulatory bodies streamline medical education.

They said there was a plan that the students with second division in the FSc exam would be allowed to sit MDCAT.

“This option is being considered as many private medical colleges have failed to fill their student quota last year, leaving many seats unfilled,” a senior educationist told Dawn.

He said allowing students with low scores in FSc exam would not only affect the standards of medical and dental graduates but add to the “unemployment pool.”

The experts said the hospitals didn’t have the capacity to provide standardised training facilities to the graduates in hospitals during house jobs, so the government shouldn’t allow an increase in medical college seats and establishment of more colleges.

They called for government measures to ensure improvement of teaching standards in medical and dental schools.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2025