MIANWALI: Young Tehzeeb Fatima of Mianwali has a brilliant academic record with 997 marks out of 1,100 in FSc but she could not qualify for any state-run medical college after getting 137/200 marks in MDCAT. She was very dejected seeing her dream of becoming a doctor dashed to pieces.

Fatima’s parents decided to sell their property to get her admission to a private medical college and she applied for a private college in Islamabad. This is where the next phase of her trouble started, revealing to her that medical education in private colleges is an unending money race in which only the ones having the maximum riches win.

Fatima was quite optimistic to get admission to the college as her aggregate (61.44pc) was higher than most of the other candidates. However, as per the formula given by the newly-formed Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) for the private medical colleges, the colleges count 30pc marks of FSc obtained marks, 50pc marks of MDCAT and additional 20 marks for interview, a prerogative of the college. These 20 marks are what the private colleges exploit to sell the seats to candidates for admission. They decrease and increase their merit list at will after minting money.

Call to change PMC admission policy for private colleges

The students like Fatima demand an end to this practice and call for merit lists for the private colleges to be prepared by the PMC itself.

She was devastated to find out that her name was missing in the final merit list of the college while the name of a candidate whose aggregate marks in FSc and MDCAT were 51pc went through as she was allotted full 20 marks in the interview and her score was raised to 71 marks in the final merit list.

Fatima is not alone who experienced this ordeal. Muhammad Tahir Qurshi, a resident of Mianwali, told this scribe the story of his grandson and granddaughter who tried to get admission to another private medical college of Islamabad. In their case, the first 100 students who had secured higher marks in FSc and MDCAT were denied admission while those getting lower marks were given full marks in the interviews to help them qualify.

Mr Qureshi said when he approached the college administration he was told that his grandchildren could not do well in the interview that’s why they could not make it to the final merit list. He said it was quite clear that the students with less marks were sold seats as their parents offered a hefty amount of donation as compared to the one who was having 61.44pc marks.

Mr Qureshi said the college officials advised him to deposit advance fees to get full interview marks to include his grandchildren’s names in the merit list. He said after selling his property, he got prepared two pay orders in the name of the college worth Rs24,50,000 and Rs36,50,000 but was surprised to find further demand of donation and more advance fees. So he decided to withdraw deposited pay orders.

Qureshi and Fatima have demanded the PMC to revisit its policy of discretionary 20 marks for interviews allowed to the private medical colleges as the policy is letting the colleges extorting money from the affluent people while ruining the future of the deserving candidates. They said the 20 marks were tantamount to playing with the fate of the deserving candidates who burn the midnight oil to realise their long-cherished dreams.

They also demand the PMC prepare a merit list of students failing to qualify in entrance tests and bring the administration of private medical colleges playing the dirty game to the book.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2021