Cheap courses, global recognition draw Indian medical students to Ukraine
Darpan News Desk IANS, 28 Feb, 2022 12:27 PM
New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) Every year thousands of students from India go to Ukraine for medical education. A big reason for this is the facilities and cheap medical courses offered to the students in Ukraine and the recognition given to Ukrainian universities across the world.
The cost of medical education in a private medical college in Ukraine is half as much as in India, and the process of admission is also much simpler than in India.
There are currently 14 major medical colleges in Ukraine in which more than 18,000 Indian students are pursuing MBBS and BDS courses. Out of these, about 1,000 have returned home while efforts are on to bring back the rest.
Sandeep Dhamija, director of one of the country's renowned medical coaching institutes, says that compared to the number of seats reserved for medical course in Ukraine, few locals apply. This is the reason why medical seats are easily available to foreign students and Indian students get the benefit.
Shirish Mehta, who did his MBBS from Ukraine, says that infrastructure in medical colleges of Ukraine is far better than in India, and also the cost of medical education in Ukraine is not even half of that of private colleges in India.
The cost of medical education in government colleges in India, is around Rs 3 lakh per annum for each student. On the other hand, in private medical colleges of India, this cost goes up to Rs 20 lakh and may increase to Rs 30 lakh annually.
In government medical colleges of India, where the cost of medical education for 5 years comes around Rs 15 to Rs 20 lakh, in private colleges, a student has to shell out more than Rs 80 lakh for the same. In several Indian private medical colleges, this cost goes over Rs 1 crore.
On the other hand in Ukraine, a student doing MBBS has to pay about Rs 5 lakh per year, which takes the overall cost in five years to Rs 25 lakh.
Indian educationist C.S. Kandpal says that one of the major reasons for the popularity of medical education in Ukraine is that students here do not have to take any separate examination to join these courses, whereas in India, NEET examinations are compulsory.
Lakhs of students appear in the NEET exam every year, out of which only about 40,000 get admission in government medical colleges. In such a situation, a large number of NEET qualified Indian students turn to Ukraine.
In Ukraine, NEET qualified students get admission easily and their ranking does not matter.
The Chief Minister told the media here that for more than a year since the Central government had brought three agriculture laws for the benefit of farmers, especially small and marginal ones, unfortunately, some farmer unions had been protesting on the Delhi borders.
While the Centre's announcement to repeal three farm laws is seen as a political decision with eye on forthcoming assembly polls in five states, the BJP claims that it has nothing to do with elections as the party has won many states after laws were passed by the Parliament.
On January 12 this year, the Supreme Court had stayed the implementation of the three farm laws after scores of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh pitched their tents on various Delhi borders in protest against the three laws.
A nine-member committee of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), the consortium of protesting farmers' bodies, will be meeting on Saturday, and it is likely to put forth four main demands. The meeting will also decide whether the SKM will go ahead with the originally announced 'March Towards Delhi' programme on November 26.
Congress legislator and Punjab unit party president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday said the minimum support price (MSP) is the bigger issue than farm laws as it is the lifeline of farmers.
Extending his greetings to the people on Prakash Purb of Guru Nanak Dev, the Chief Minister said it was really a matter of great honour to inaugurate this prestigious project which happens to coincide with Gurpurab.
