Government medical colleges to enrol students from Oct 17 to Dec 31

Islamabad:All public sector medical colleges will begin enrolling students for the MBBS degree course in the next academic year on October 17 and finish the exercise by December 31, announced their regulator.

The PMC also said the admission process in private medical colleges would conclude by January 31 next year. As for the dental degree (BDS) programme, the watchdog set February 14 and February 28 as the deadlines for enrolment in government and private dental colleges, respectively.

According to it, colleges and universities are at liberty under the regulations to initiate the application process anytime after May 2023. With over 200,000 students registered across the country and abroad for the next MDCAT (Medical and Dental Colleges Admission Test), the PMC said it would declare the results on October 7.

According to the PMC, the students who sat the last MDCAT can use their 2021 results equivalence to the 2022 MDCAT when applying for admissions. For admission to the government's medical colleges, each province or territory will determine the merit structure based on the students having qualified the MDCAT at 65 per cent for admission to medical colleges and 55 per cent for admission to dental colleges.

Private colleges and universities set their individual merit criteria for admissions subject to students having qualified the MDCAT as per notified eligibility for medical and dental programmes.

As per regulations framed by the Medical and Dental Council, the national admissions scheduling committee consisted of 11 members. They include Dr Allah Rakha (Punjab-UHS), Prof Jawad Ahmed (KP-KMU), Prof Riaz Ahmed Shaikh (Sindh), Prof Dr Zahir Khan Mandokhel (Balochistan admission committee), Prof Mulazim Hussain Bukhari (AJK admission committee), Prof Moosa Khan (federal capital territory-SZAMBU), Brig Azhar Shams (NUMS), Prof Dr Abdul Rasheed Mian and Ghulam Noorani (nominees of private medical colleges), and Dr Ali Farhan and Dr Mohammad Rizwan Saghir Chatha (nominees of private dental colleges).

The PMC said as part of its continuing efforts to establish consensus-based benchmarks for medical and dental colleges earlier this year, it had framed regulations for forming the national admission scheduling committee. The committee has the representation of all provinces.

It added that every private medical and dental college was requested to submit nominations, while two people each receiving the highest number of nominations from medical and dental colleges were notified as members of the committee. The PMC also said it was the prerogative of the colleges to nominate representatives, which they did, and that the committee members were appointed from among them.