Saturday, March 24, 2018

Vellore med college awaits SC order for admissions

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 

 
24.03.2018


Chennai: The management of the Christian Medical College, Vellore, is awaiting the Supreme Court verdict to decide on admissions for MBBS and PG courses to the college in 2018. It is also speaking to officials seeking autonomy to admit students, its director Dr J V Peter said.

While the institution says it is willing to take the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test as eligibility for admissions, it feels NEET alone is not the test for suitability to pursue a career in medicine. In 2017, when the Supreme Court insisted that admission to self-financing and deemed university should be done by the respective state governments, the college halted admissions as officials did not want to compromise on the suitability test.

The institution has 100 MBBS seats, nearly 200 seats for PG degree and diploma and more than 60 super-speciality approved by the Medical Council of India. The institute moved the court seeking autonomy but verdict is pending, officials said.

Until 2016, the century-old institution followed a unique admission process – a special test and an interview. “We are not against NEET as an eligibility exam, but we want to ensure that our students have the right attitude and aptitude to work and serve the mission. They should serve the underprivileged,” CMC principal Dr Anna Pulimood said.

In 2017, CMC admitted PG students using NEET, but it had applied its own process for evaluating their aptitude and attitude, which was permitted by the Supreme Court. “We want to select only suitable candidates,” said Dr Pulimood.

The institute charges Rs 3,000 tuition fee for UG students per academic year. There is no seat sharing arrangement with the state. The minority institution has not been sharing seats with the state health department for admission through the single window counselling, she said. “Although the state insists that we must share seats, we have court orders in our favour. But the new rules will not allow us to do so.”

Senior officials and doctors in the college say that halting admission for another year may affect service at the hospital. “A lot of our work is done by PG and superspeciality students. We won’t be able to do so well without our students. We are already under a lot of pressure because we don’t have at least 60 doctors who would have joined us for super-speciality courses,” said a senior surgeon.

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