21,489 students take medical entry test today
LAHORE: As many as 21,489 candidates will appear in the entrance test for admissions for 4,029 MBBS/BDS seats in public and private medical/dental colleges of Punjab simultaneously at 13 centres in 12 cities of the province on Sunday (today).
The entrance test will start at 9 am and end at 11:30 am. The candidates are required to reach at their centres at 8 am as all the centres would be closed at 8:15 am.
Briefing the media regarding the arrangements for entrance test at a press conference here at the Senate Hall of the University of Health Sciences on Saturday, UHS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Hussain Mubashar Malik said that out of the total of 21,489 candidates, an overwhelming majority of 14,987 (69.75%) female candidates and 6,502 (30.25%) male candidates would appear in the test. The figure indicates the trend of female dominance in public as well as private medical/dental colleges. Last year, out of a total 18,263 candidates, as many as 12,282 female candidates and 5,981 male candidates appeared in the entrance test.
It may also be mentioned here that more than 17,000 students will not be able to join the medical/dental education after the entrance test.
The medical professionals are of the view that low-merit FSc students, who were made eligible to take the entrance test, will not be able to get admissions to public or private colleges even if they scored 100 per cent in the test because only top-merit FSc students, who usually scored high in the test as well, have always been able to get admissions to medical/dental colleges.
“It is useless to give hope to so many students only to dash it afterwards and presently the weightage given to FSc marks seems to be aiming to generate revenue through selling admission kits to over 21,000 candidates against just over 4,000 seats,” a student said.
According to medical professionals, more than 60 per cent seats are eventually grabbed by female candidates, which they said was plaguing the healthcare system in the province.
In view of the very low percentage of lady doctors who ultimately join the profession as a majority of them leave the profession after marriages, the UHS VC said the government was working to solve the problem and added that the government should file a review petition in the court to give advantage to male students over the females for admissions to medical/dental education.
