PESHAWAR: Pakistan Medical and Dental Council has increased 149 seats for admission to medical and dental colleges as Khyber Medical University has started preparations for holding Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test (MDCAT) in the province.

“PMDC has approved increase in open merit seats for the year 2024-25 after which the number of slots has reached from 1,021 to 1,109 in public sector medical and dental colleges in the province. With the addition of newly-created seats, the total number has gone up from the existing 1,154 to 1,303,” Prof Ziaul Haq, the vice-chancellor of Khyber Medical University, told Dawn.

He said that seats on general self-finance basis were also increased from 149 to 177 while the slots for self-finance basis foreign students were also increased from 51 to 55. MDCAT will be held on September 22 by five admitting universities across the country for which applications will be sought from students within few days.

Prof Zia said that the syllabus would remain unchanged as per PMDC’s decision. Countrywide, an estimated 200,000 candidates will take the test this year. Last year, 180,534 appeared in the test.

KMU starts preparations for entrance test

The council has directed all the provincial secretaries to start preparations for MDCAT, according to a statement. It added that the decision had been taken keeping in view the larger interest of students.

Prof Zia said that in light of PMDC’s instructions to all provincial secretaries about making preparations for MDCAT, they already held meeting under Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry wherein a detailed security plan was chalked out to conduct the test in a peaceful and transparent manner.

“Students will enter the test centres with only roll number slips and national identity cards after undergoing Nadra’s biometric verification. They will be given pen, papers and water etc inside the centres while additional chief secretary home and tribal affairs will supervis6e security arrangements on the day of test from control room,” he said.

Prof Zia said that a total of seven centres, one each at divisional level, would be established. “We have planned to set up three to four centres in the provincial capital, Peshawar. An estimated 50,000 students are likely to appear in the test,” he said.

He said that in each division, the respective commissioner would look into administrative affairs while deputy commissioners would be directly involved in the process to ensure security on the day of test. He said that officers of district police would be present outside test centres.

Prof Zia said that assistant commissioners would help in transportation of sealed papers to centres with two KMU staffers. “Parents shouldn’t encourage their scions to involve in unfair means. Last year, several students were blacklisted after they were found using devices for cheating. Police and other law enforcement agencies would be deployed outside each centre,” he added.

He also hinted at conducting the test digitally in future. In KMU, all examinations are conducted with the help of computers. “Paperless examinations would ensure more transparency. Provincial government and health department have always been very cooperative and we need more efforts in view of rising number of students taking tests every year,” he said.

The KMU vice-chancellor said that 13,464 students appeared in the test in 2010; 15,141 in 2011; 18,101 in 2012; 19,486 in 2013; 21,774 in 2014; 22,910 in 2015; 27,573 in 2016; 33,053 in 2017; 38,068 in 2018; 43,830 in 2019; and 46,218 students took the test in 2023.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2024