Health experts demand restoration of provincial quota for admissions to Bangladeshi medical colleges

Senior medical and public health professionals from Sindh and Balochistan have urged the authorities to restore the entrance test and provincial quota of Pakistani students for admissions to the medical colleges of Bangladesh under the Bangladesh government’s scholarship programme for Saarc countries.

“Prior to 2019, admissions in MBBS/BDS programmes in Bangladeshi medical colleges under Saarc scholarship program used to be awarded through open advertisement and entrance test as per provincial quota in Pakistan under the administration of the Ministry of Interprovincial coordination, Government of Pakistan. From 2019, the Embassy of Bangladesh, Islamabad is directly inviting the application and they are not following the provincial quota, depriving students from Sindh and Balochistan to get medical education in Bangladesh,” Prof Dr Ramesh Kumar, a public health specialist, said on Wednesday.

The Embassy of Bangladesh in Islamabad last week announced admissions in MBBS and BDS programmes on 117 seats reserved for Saarc countries, including 21 MBBS and BDS seats for Pakistan, while students from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan are also given admissions to Bangladeshi medical and dental colleges.

Similarly, the Bangladeshi government also gives admissions to students from Myanmar, Palestine and other countries of the world under its scholarship programme for foreign students.

In his letter to Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other authorities, Prof Ramesh Kumar said that prior to 2019, students from all provinces of Pakistan used to get admissions to Bangladeshi medical and dental colleges under the provincial quota described in the Constitution of Pakistan.

“Several students from Sindh and Balochistan as well Khyber Pakhtunkhwa got admissions in Bangladeshi medical and dental colleges and got quality education on subsidized fees as per Saarc scholarship programme. Since 2019, the Bangladeshi authorities have abolished the provincial quota and now all the students who get medical education in Bangladesh are from Punjab due to a variety of reasons.”

Prof Kumar maintained that previously there were fixed seats for all the provinces as per the federal government quota policy, endorsed by Higher Education Commission (HEC), and the Pakistan Civil Servants Act, 1973 (LXXI of 1973) approved the quota policy for the award of scholarships in an ECNEC meeting held on July 29, 2011 after appearing in the test entrance exam etc., which has been replaced with open intermediate marks only.

“Since the change in the policy by the Bangladesh Embassy on its own, which abolished the test for admission and also abolished the provincial quota for provinces, no single candidate from Sindh and Balochistan is getting admission in Bangladesh under this current open merit system policy,” he claimed.

According to the expert, as per the provincial intermediate boards policy, Punjab students are getting 100 per cent of marks in intermediate results, but Sindh and Balochistan students cannot secure more than 90-92 per cent marks. “This is the biggest ambiguity that is affecting the equal rights of students to get admission in Bangladesh medical colleges under the Saarc quota,” he added.

Urging the foreign minister to intervene for the restoration of the previous admission policy for Pakistani students in Bangladesh, he said the restoration of the previous admission policy would provide ample chances to the students of Sindh and Balochistan to get quality medical education and serve people in their provinces.

Parents of several students who applied for admissions to Bangladeshi medical and dental colleges from Sindh and Balochistan have asked for the restoration of the provincial quota so that meritorious students of these provinces could get admissions to the Bangladeshi colleges.