Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 15 Mar: Eastern Arunachal parliamentarian Tapir Gao on Monday raised the issue of MBBS students from India graduating from foreign colleges/universities, during the zero hour in Parliament in Delhi.
Expressing concern over the fate of foreign-graduated MBBS students who failed to clear the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE), Gao said there are more than 45,000 foreign-graduated MBBS students in India.
“During Corona pandemic, our nation has lost best doctors and medical staffers. Considering the situation, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has lowered the NEET qualifying mark from the existing 50 percent to 30 percent for MBSS postgraduates and 21 percent for dentists,” Gao said.
“We have more than 45,000 foreign country graduated MBBS students. They graduated from the MCI and World Health Organization (WHO) institutes. They should be given opportunities to serve the nation by lowering the FMGE mark from 50 percent to 30 percent,” Gao added, and appealed to the Centre and the MCI to relax the qualifying mark from the existing 50 percent.
Gao argued that the country is in dire need of doctors and medical staffers after the Corona pandemic, and that the foreign-graduated medical students should be given a chance to serve the nation.
In December 2019, India Today reported that 84 percent of foreign-graduated students were failing to clear the mandatory test required to practice in India. Indian laws allow students to pursue MBBS courses from universities abroad. But in order to get a licence to practice in India, they are required to qualify the FMGE conducted by the National Board of Examination.
Clearing the FMGE is mandatory for all doctors who have earned their MBBS degree from a foreign country. Only those who earn their MBBS and postgraduate degrees from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US are exempted from this test.
