92% M.Sc nursing seats remain vacant in state

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, October 28

There are only 47 eligible candidates for 601 M.Sc nursing seats in 32 nursing colleges of the state. As October 31 is the last date of admission in nursing courses, the “distressed” institutes have asked the state medical education department to scrap many eligibility conditions so that seats could be filled.

In the entrance test conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) on September 18, only 47 candidates could qualified.

A B.Sc-pass candidate should have secured minimum 40 per cent (35 per cent for SC/BC) in the entrance test to be eligible to get admission in the M.Sc course.

Eighteen out of these 32 nursing institutes could not get even a single candidate in the M.Sc course this time. The counseling to fill these seats was conducted by the BFUHS on October 24. While eight nursing colleges could fill only one of their seats each, 3 colleges got only 2 candidates each.

Even the highly prestigious State Institute of Nursing & Paramedical Sciences in Badal village could get only 15 candidates against its 25 seats. The second highest number of seats was filled in the DMC Nursing Institute in Ludhiana, which got nine students against its 25 seats.

The nursing colleges have reportedly approached the state government to scrap the eligibility conditions, including qualifying or appearing in the entrance test. As a candidate should have a minimum of 55 per cent aggregate marks in the B.Sc nursing course to be eligible to appear in the entrance test, the colleges want the state government to write off this condition too. Not only in M.Sc Nursing, in B.Sc nursing too, Punjab is facing the problem of filling the seats. While 109 nursing colleges in the state offer 4,405 B.Sc nursing and 2,785 B.Sc (Post-Basic) nursing course seats, 925 B.Sc nursing and 1,094 B.Sc (post basic) nursing seats are still lying vacant.

As the Department of Medical Education and Research has already relaxed the norms to fill the B.Sc Nursing course seats, many candidates who have scored zero or negative marks in the entrance test too have been allowed admission.