ISLAMABAD: While medical colleges have increased annual fees up to Rs800,000 for the new session starting from 12th, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has sought justification from the colleges for the sudden increase in their fees.

The council reminded the colleges that they were bound to submit annual financial statements for the previous year and had to inform them about the increase in fees three months prior to the new session.

The letter written to heads of the institutions stated: “All medical and dental colleges shall, at least three months prior to initiating the annual admissions process, publicly declare the fixed tuition and all ancillary fee structure on an annual basis for the entire duration of the programme, in which the students are seeking enrolment…[and]fee structure shall not be enhanced during the period of enrolment at the college.”

“No medical or dental college shall seek, demand or receive from a student or a student’s family, directly or indirectly, any donation or other payment prior to or at the time of admission or thereafter during the period of the student’s continuing enrolment at the college whether as consideration for the grant of admission or otherwise,” it stated.

Official acknowledges inflation, calls for ‘reasonable’ increase

“At the beginning of each year, medical and dental colleges in respect of their undergraduate medical or dental programme shall submit their annual financial statements for the previous year and any other years required by the council, proposed fee structure and its justification to the council. In view of the above, you are required to justify the fee proposed for the session 2023-24 via email to enable this office to proceed further in the matter,” the letter stated.

‘Reasonable increase’

An official of the PMDC, wishing not to be named, said: “We have sought justification from the colleges for the sudden increase in fees as we want to make sure that people would afford the fee. However, at the same time, we don’t want to close the colleges because in that case students will go abroad and study at ‘substandard’ medical colleges. It is a fact that the expenses of colleges have also increased because of inflation. So there should be a reasonable increase in fees,” he said.

While replying to a question, he said that it was not possible to categorise the colleges during the upcoming session so categories will be introduced next year.

It is worth mentioning that last month Health Minister Dr Nadeem Jan had announced that, after inspection, colleges will be categorised and their fees will be fixed as per categories.

Increase in fees

As per the documents available with Dawn, the annual fee of Akhtar Saeed Medical and Dental College Lahore for MBBS was around Rs1.8 million but from the new session, the college will charge over Rs2.6 million.

HBS Medical and Dental College Islamabad will charge over Rs2.2 million as compared to Rs1.55 million for the last year. Foundation University Medical College has announced fees of Rs1.6 million; last year, it charged Rs1.58 million from Pakistani students.

CMH Lahore Medical and Dental College and Institute of Dentistry Lahore (MBBS) have announced to charge Rs2.2 million as compared to Rs1.75 million.

Shalamar Medical and Dental College will charge Rs2.1 million compared to Rs1.65 million for the last year. Islamabad Medical and Dental College charged Rs1.6 million during last year’s MBBS programme but it will charge Rs2.1 million for the upcoming session.

Shifa College of Medicine Islamabad increased its fees from Rs1.4 million to Rs1.7 million for MBBS.

The Aga Khan University Karachi was charging Rs2.6 million for the last year but has announced annual fees of over Rs3 million for the upcoming year for its MBBS programme.

Fazaia Medical College, Islamabad has increased fees from about Rs1.4 million to Rs1.6 million while Rehman Medical College Peshawar has increased fees from Rs1.5 million to Rs1.7 million.

Published in Dawn, February 1st, 2024