Stand with AIFMGA and ask Union Health Ministry and Prime Minister of India to make FMGE Transparent.

Main AIM of Screening Test (Final University Exam / MBBS level) according to Hon. Supreme Court is to check the basic skills and knowledge of candidate who obtained Primary Medical Degree from abroad to get registered with MCI. The present FMGE conducted by NBE is not the test to screen but it is a kind of elimination ( a money making process from poor FMGs ). In past a false impression has been created by MCI and NBE in public that Foreign Medical Graduates are incompetent due to their own vested interests. However, it is clear to the public at large about the authenticity of entrance conducted by Private Medical Colleges and after scams like VYAPAM. The hardships to FMGs are deliberately created to promote Indian Medical seat Mafias.

 BACKGROUND:

The stark reality in India is that the demand for medical seats far outstrips the availability due to the limited number of Medical Colleges in India. It is only the exceptionally bright students with very high marks in the qualifying examinations who succeed in getting a seat in a Government Medical College, and the financially strong but not necessarily the brightest students, who can afford the fees and other costs in a Private Medical College, who succeed in getting a seat in a Private Medical College in India. As a result, a large number of bright students (about 4000 to 5000 every year) from middle class and economically backward homes who have the ambition but not the means, are compelled to go abroad, at great financial stress and sacrifice to their parents, to study medicine in countries where the education is excellent, the fees are more affordable and the medium of instruction is English.

     As we are aware of the facts that it is mandatory for any Indian citizen desirous of getting registered with MCI or any State Medical Council and possessing a primary medical qualification awarded by any medical institution outside India to qualify the screening test conducted by the National Board of Examination (NBE). The exam is of the standard of MBBS and necessary to adjudge the competency level of such foreign trained medical graduates before they are allowed to practice in India.

     But now the truths are surfacing out slowly, the Ministry should come forward and take bold decisions to save the medical education and also health care system in India.

     As per the MCI’s estimation, India is short of nearly 10 lakh doctors. In India, current Doctors & Patients ratio is 1:1700. WHO norms is 1:1000. To bring this ratio up to the standards of other developing countries like India let alone world accepted levels. Unfortunately however, we produce only about 34,000 Medical Graduates each year due to the limited number of medical colleges in the country. Thus it will take decades before India can have enough doctors to meet its needs and provide health care for all the citizens. Yet we fail to bring into the mainstream over 18,000 and more doctors who have completed their Medical degrees abroad, but yet not passed the Screening Test due to some vested interests and non transparency in exam.

     Our country is facing acute shortage of Doctors, Medical Colleges and lack of sufficient medical seats in medical college. Due to this many students are seeking admission in foreign medical colleges and after getting their requisite medical degree required for medical practices in India, they are all bound to appear in the test conducted by National Board of Examination (NBE) an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi.

    Thousands of Primary Health Centre and Government Dispensaries are vacant waiting for Doctors. On one hand Govt. now and then plans to allow Ayurvedic and Homeopath doctors to practice allopathy and to start a new 3 years course to create doctors, on the other hand FMGs are ignored at large by some vested interests. On one side Government’s intending to start a short course for preparing doctors for rural areas and on another side Foreign Medical Doctors are ready to serve our nation by working in Rural areas where our Government is not ready to utilize.

    Every year about 13,000 foreign medical graduates take MCI screening test in India to be eligible to do medical practice. This test is conducted by National Board of Examination (NBE), an autonomous body under the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

    This situation arise because, out of 9 lakh students who appear for Pre-Medical MBBS admission test, only 60,000 students are admitted in all medical colleges put together in the country. That is why our Indian students are seeking admission in foreign medical colleges.

    Presently we all know that, India is facing a major crisis of Brain-Drain, as doctors passing from Indian institutes are taking the first opportunity to go abroad and almost all of them never return despite having been fed and brought up on resources (TAX paid by Indian Common Population) of this country. We Foreign Medical Doctors are coming back from foreign countries and are ready to serve our mother land. But are facing huge problems to register our self with Medical Council of India.

    It is known that illegal and unethical things are happening causing great disappointment, to young doctors who have taken extra pains to study medicine abroad. The dark side of the story is that corruption and irregularities prevailing in the NBE and there is no transparency in conducting this screening test.

GRIEVANCES:

1. No Transparency in Foreign Medical Graduates Examination:

Strong feeling in students’ community is that, this order of Supreme Court is not followed strictly in its entirety and the questions are of Post-Graduate Entrance Exam standards. It is strengthened strongly by the declining passing percentage or low passing percentage every year due to common pool of electronic Question Bank for Post Graduate Entrance (DNB, AIPGMEE) and FMGE.

Exams conducted by NBE lacks TRANPARENCY as they do not provide question papers & answer key. Even though it’s a online exam NBE takes months to declare results causing high probability of tampering.

If the FMGs Exam is made Transparent (i.e., provision of allowing Question paper and Answer key after exam), the apprehension/doubts of students community can be cleared, also manipulation will be cleared.

For Transparency, the students demand is simply that the NBE provide access to the student to his/her Question and Answer Paper, display Key Answers on their Website, permit the student to compare his answers to the key answers to make sure that the evaluation is in order, and if required challenge the evaluation or the Key Answers.

Even Dental Council of India is conducting the screening test for Foreign Dental Graduates since 2009 and releases Answer  key with questions. Surely, Dental field is not vast as Medical field. Yet, DCI does not take any excuse of Patient Interests or Public Interest like NBE. There are similarly so many other examinations like COMEDK, MANIPAL, APPG, MH-CET, UPSC, etc publish Answer Keys or provide access to the Answer papers or allow revaluation etc.

It cannot be the case that the Question Bank is so small that disclosure of questions will compromise the exam itself. Dental Medicine is only a small part of Human Medicine, yet the DCI authorities have not thought that their Question Bank is too small or that the exam will be compromised by making their exam transparent. 

We assert that, on the contrary, Public Interest or Patient Interests will be better served by making the screening test more transparent. It is quite possible that many more doctors qualified from abroad who are now rotting will come into mainstream and serve the public good in our country, where there is huge shortage of doctors in health sector.

2. Since June 2014, NBE is conducting FMGE in online platform with multiple set of papers and multiple sessions in collusion with a private firm named PROMETIC (US based company) without issuing any proper tender notice of bidding. It is pertinent to mention that one such tender of PROMETRIC with IIMs amounts to $40 millions. On the other hand similar contract of IIMs with TATA Consultancy later amounted to $5 millions. On the name of comparing and equating multiple sessions, PROMETRIC uses a complex formula which is not disclosed to students or even NBE / MOHFW. Ever since then the passing percentage of FMGE has been dropped from average 30% to 4%.

3. Now a days, NBE started to conduct multiple day tests in FMGE which is against the rules and regulations of Hon’ble Supreme Court.

4. Blueprint as mentioned in Information bulletin released by National Board of Examinations is strictly not followed and they conducts PG / Competitive level exam instead of MBBS standards where Hon’ble Supreme Court orders are also violated.

5. Results are declared in one month time period. Why NBE is taking this much of time to declare just 150 marks out of 300 even though it is not a grading or ranking system. For example AIIMS, JIPMER, PGI Chandigarh etc needs some time to grade candidates according to their performance in exam, but these exams declare results within a week period. Here it shows NBE takes time to deliberately fail candidates by manipulating the results (as passing percentage is declining). In June 2014 it was only 4.93% and in June 2015, it was 10.4%

6. In India, there is no such exam conducted with hefty fee like Rs.5,500 where NBE charges from every candidate who appears for test. NBE doesn’t get any fund from ME-2 section of Ministry of Health and Family welfare, RTI application with regd. No. MOHFW/R/14/63100 dated 02/12/2014. Hence NBE derives all its funds through the students making it a private like organization with conflict of interest to fail more candidates (in FMGE and DNB final exams) in order to get more funds in crores.

7. NBE conducted MOCK test for commercial gains in collusion with a private firm named PROMETRIC for December 2014 exams (FMGE, DNB, AIPGMEE) at hefty cost  of Rs.1000/- per test which is nearly 2-3 times more than the MOCK test conducted by coaching centres. Students are left with no choice but to attempt these mocks conducted by NBE in hope to get repeat questions in the examinations. No separate tender was issued by NBE to give the contract of conducting MOCK tests to PROMETRIC and after raising this issue NBE dropped the conduction of MOCK test since then.

8. Every now and then, NBE used to change their Exam Pattern, Schedule of FMGE Date, Notification,  Declaration of Results and also the rules and regulations provided in the information bulletin without prior approval of Governing body or MOHFW. There is no grievance readdress mechanism in NBE and all the grievances pertaining to authorities of NBE are forwarded to same authorities of NBE by MOHFW through CPGRAMS.

 

We assert that there are vested interests, who make windfall illegal gains from medical seat shortages in India, who want to ensure that the screening test results are poor so as to discourage more students from going abroad to study medicine. We wish to clear the apprehension in the minds of many that MCI/NBE are also in league with these vested interests. This can only be done if the screening test is Transparent.

We hope you may aware that NBE is not conducting the screening test in a proper and transparent manner and thus foreign medical graduates are discriminated by forcibly subjecting to unfair Screening test which is against the fundamental right of foreign medical graduates.

Taking into consideration all the issues mentioned above, especially in the context of the huge shortage of medical doctors in India, it seems apparent that there is a conscious discrimination against FMGs with a view to discourage students from going abroad to qualify for a medical degree.

 Stand with AIFMGA and ask Union Health Ministry and Prime Minister of India to make FMGE Transparent.

 #Justice4FMGs