PESHAWAR: The decision of caretaker government to upgrade Khyber Medical College Peshawar and Ayub Medical College Abbottabad to university level is unlikely to get materialised as former government already rejected in 2022 a summary about upgradation of four private colleges as universities.

The decision of the caretaker government was made after a demand by the province’s first and oldest Khyber Medical College to get upgraded to Khyber Medical College University owing to its vast infrastructure. In the past, efforts by private medical colleges to get upgraded to university level proved fruitless.

In 2022, a meeting attended by secretary of higher education, secretary of health and other relevant officials of the provincial government discussed feasibility of four new private medical universities. However, the item was withdrawn from the agenda of the provincial cabinet’s meeting the same year after a briefing by the representatives of Khyber Medical University (KMU), the only public sector university, which stated that it produced about 48,000 healthcare workers including 2,700 doctors annually from 26 medical and dental colleges and 10 sub-campuses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The meeting was informed that more universities could negatively impact uniform academic and examination standard because of dearth of PhD faculty in medical sciences and would lead to scattering of the available resources over many institutions, weakening the status of the existing financially self-sufficient government institution without fulfilling the needs of the newly-established universities.

Caretaker govt has decided to upgrade KMC and AMC

Opening a floodgate for mushrooming of medical universities in the province will offer no clear benefit to any facet of the healthcare system, service provision, academics, or research and some of these private organisations are aspiring to become general universities while still offering medical courses, against the legal provisions, whereas a general university cannot offer any medical or allied health education. The law protects technical and territorial jurisdiction of KMU in this respect.

In Punjab, the government has never allowed any private medical or general university offering medical courses. University of Health Sciences (UHS), Lahore, regulates all 86 private medical institutions in Punjab.

The meeting was informed that private colleges were part of all statutory bodies including, academic council, affiliation committee, syndicate and senate, where unanimous decisions regarding uniform curriculum, discipline and examination were taken.

Private medical colleges charge every medical student about Rs2 million per annum of which UHS, Lahore, gets Rs150,000 and KMU gets Rs20,000.

During the past 30 years, the number of medical and dental colleges in Pakistan has grown 10-folds from 22 in 1990 to 240 in 2022, including 122 medical colleges, 48 public and 74 private, and 59 dental colleges, 17 public and 42 private.

Many of the newly-established private medical institutions struggle to meet the minimal requirements in terms of faculty, infrastructure and training facilities set forth by Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

Currently, there are two medical universities in the province. KMU was established in 2007 in public sector and Gandhara University in 1995 in private sector.

The latter hasn’t a PhD programme in health sciences while the former in a short span of 15 years has initiated PhD programmes in 17 disciplines.

Still many general universities in the province have been offering programmes related to medical and allied health sciences, which is a clear violation of KMU Act 2007.

“The university shall exercise the powers conferred on it by or under this Act within the territorial limits of the whole of the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and in respect of such medical colleges and institutions in Fata as may apply to the university for exercise of its process,” says the Act.

All medical and dental colleges and all institutions of medical and allied health sciences in public sector in North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), shall be affiliated to KMU. All private medical and dental colleges and institutions of medical and allied health sciences in the province, whether affiliated with or constituent of any other university, examination board or a medical faculty, notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, shall affiliate with the university through a process prescribed hereinafter;” the Act adds.

The relevant sections of the Act have been saved in the health department notification dated August 17, 2012, and Gazette notification dated September 9, 2016. Therefore, even if they are declared as universities, MBBS, BDS and allied health sciences programmes will still be affiliated with KMU, otherwise every general university will follow it as precedent and eventually KMU will lose justification of its creation and existence.

Punjab has the highest number of private medical colleges. The public sector UHS Lahore conducts all exams same as KMU does in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The word ‘university’ is supposed to be a hub of knowledge, wisdom and critical thinking producing skilled graduates and often requires decades, if not centuries to achieve this goal. Therefore, it took 50 years to establish KMU after KMC in 1956. The then secretary health had rejected summary of private medical universities.

However, it remains to be seen as the chief minister and cabinet have accorded approval to upgradation of Khyber Medical College and Ayub Medical College as both happen to be well-staffed and well-equipped.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2024