PESHAWAR: The representatives of doctors have expressed concern about an increase in admission fee for public sector medical and dental colleges and demanded its immediate withdrawal to the relief of poor students selected on merit.

According to members of the Provincial Doctors Association, Pakistan Islamic Medical Association and Young Doctors Association, mostly wealthy people get education in private medical colleges, while the students from low-income families studying in government colleges are financially-assisted.

PDA chairman Dr Zubair Zahir told Dawn that it’s very strange that the government medical colleges, instead of giving free education to the students admitted on merit, who mostly belonged to poor families, had increased fee by 100 per cent.

He said the fee revision should be withdrawn to the relief of intelligent yet poor students, who struggled to pay fee.

“The students, who can afford fee, can take admission in private medical colleges,” he said.

Last month, a meeting with the health minister in the chair decided to increase fee for merit-based, self-finance and foreign self-finance admissions to medical colleges as well as for Afghan nationals.

It also decided that the students selected on ‘open merit’ would pay Rs50,000 fee against the current Rs23,370 every year. The Afghan nationals and self-finance local and foreign students will pay Rs800,000 instead of the current Rs413,208 fee.

The Kohat Institute of Medical and Dental Sciences revised the annual fee for open and general self-finance students from Rs147,800 and Rs554,000 to Rs300,000 and Rs800,000, respectively.

The relevant officials claimed that the fee hike was notified on the guidelines of the Pakistan Medical Commission.

They said there were 1,382 seats in 14 public sector colleges, including 10 medical and four dental, which had 922 slots for open merit, 136 for former Fata, 130 for general self-finance, 43 for foreign self-finance, 29 for tribal areas of Balochistan, 34 for Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 12 for Afghan nationals, six for physically-challenged students, four for India-held Kashmir, and others for students from Chitral, Buner, Tank, Dir, Shangla and other underdeveloped districts.

The Pakistan Islamic Medical Association called the fee increase extremely unjust and said it would shut the door of education for intelligent students from humble backgrounds amid high inflation rate.

In a statement issued here, PIMA Khyber Pakhtunkhwa president Prof Gulshan Hussain Farooqi said the provision of healthcare and education to the people were the primary responsibilities of the government but the government was pursuing such a policy of privatisation, which had made both sectors more and more inaccessible to the people from poor and middle classes.

He said intelligent students got admission on merit due to low admission fee, while the wealthy students went to private medical colleges, whose fee structure was unaffordable for the common man.

Officials in the health department said the fee structure of government colleges were still very low compared to the private sector’s or those located in other provinces, where students paid almost double the amount.

They said the amount taken from students as fee would be used to upgrade facilities.

They said the province required more medical colleges due to increase in population as last years, seats for the erstwhile Fata students were doubled in the public sector colleges.

President of the Young Doctors’ Association Dr Asfandyar Bittani told Dawn that the association rejected the fee hike as it would only hit the financially weak students, who wouldn’t get medical education despite selection on merit.

“The fee hike is an attempt to stop poor youth from becoming doctors. It should be withdrawn,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2021