ISLAMABAD: While Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) is going to generate around Rs1.4 billion through the Medical and Dental Colleges’ Admission Test (MDCAT), parents have been irked by its hefty fee.

They parents have also criticised the decision that the fee for the entry test of medical and dental colleges will be non-refundable.

Around 170,000 students have registered themselves for MDCAT which will be held on Sept 22 at 30 venues across the country and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and two international centres (Dubai and Riyadh).

The father of a candidate said initially PMDC had demanded Rs8,000 from each candidate for the single-day test within the country and Rs40,000 from those appearing at the international centres. Then on August 31, the PMDC again opened its portal and asked candidates, who could not register for the test earlier, to deposit Rs16,000 for the local and Rs80,000 for international centres.

“Moreover, the fee is not refundable. Any candidate can fail to appear in the test because of a disease or death in the family or any other unseen circumstances. In such a case, the candidates should be allowed to appear in the next test if it is not possible to refund the fee,” he said.

A faculty member, wishing not to be quoted, said when the provincial governments used to hold MDCT they used to charge each candidate Rs500 to Rs1,000.

“They also used to give stationery, pencils and water bottles to the candidates. However, when the now defunct Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) was established it announced online tests spanning over one month. The commission said it would hire laptops, purchase WiFi and book halls for conducting the tests. The PMC announced to charge Rs6,000 from each candidate. Later, there were allegations that the fee amount was embezzled. Protests were also held as some candidates got easy and others difficult questions in the online tests,” he said.

“When PMDC was restored, it charged Rs6,000 last year and this year it has fixed the fee at Rs8,000 for a few hours’ test which is unjustifiable. An amount of over Rs1 billion is generated as MDCAT is the largest test in Pakistan in terms of the number of candidates,” he said.

However, an official of PMDC disagreed with the allegations and said it was the decision of the council to enhance the test fee to Rs8,000.

“Out of Rs8,000, an amount of Rs6,000 to Rs6,400 will be paid to the universities for holding the test as a number of them have outsourced the holding of the test. The remaining amount will be used by the PMDC on formation of monitoring teams and surprise visits to centres,” he said.

The official said the universities may not save any amount as they will establish a number of centres in different cities and will pay for mobile phone jammers, stationery, per diem to invigilators besides providing refreshment to candidates.

When asked why less than a thousand rupees were charged in the past, he said provincial governments used to subsidise MDCAT and tests were held in government schools where government teachers were hired as invigilators.

“However, there were complaints regarding leakage of papers at that time. We had considered that the fee should be refundable but the universities will pay the amounts on the basis of students as they have outsourced the test. We cannot subsidise the test and universities are also facing severe financial crunch,” he said.

Bolan University of Medical and Health Sciences Vice Chancellor Dr Shabir Lehri, while talking to Dawn, said he had demanded Rs6,400 per student from PMDC because he had outsourced the test to Nust.

“Similarly, the University of Health Sciences (UHS) has also outsourced MDCAT. We will not be able to save any amount. However, I suggest that MDCAT should be decentralised as it is not the job of the PMDC, being a regulator, to receive applications and fee from candidates,” he said.

“I have served as the president of PMDC and believe that the council has no right to keep Rs2,000 of the fee collected from each student.

Dr Lehri said it was unfortunate that PMDC did not bother to take universities on board for the largest test of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2024