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NMC’s move to relax medical faculty recruitment norms baffling: Jairam Ramesh

Jan 20, 2025 01:48 PM IST

NMC in its draft regulations for 2024 has allowed non-medical graduates with MSc and PhD degrees to teach medical students

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Monday termed the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) move to relax norms for faculty recruitment in medical colleges as “baffling.”

The medical education regulator released the draft TEQ 2024 on January 17 and asked stakeholders for comments within a week. (PTI file photo)
The medical education regulator released the draft TEQ 2024 on January 17 and asked stakeholders for comments within a week. (PTI file photo)

The development comes a day after HT reported that NMC in its draft “Teachers Eligibility Qualifications (TEQ) in Medical Institutions Regulations” for 2024, has allowed non-medical graduates with MSc and PhD degrees to teach medical students anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology to MBBS students for a limited period.

“First, the Modi Govt lowers the cut-off percentiles for admission to post-graduate medical courses through NEET-PG. Now it relaxes norms for recruitment of faculty by medical colleges. The National Medical Commission was set up in Sept 2020 by an Act of Parliament with great expectations that quality medical education would expand. Some of the moves taken by it, however, are baffling,” Congress general secretary said in a post on X.

The medical education regulator released the draft TEQ 2024 on January 17 and asked stakeholders for comments within a week. The draft regulations, if implemented, will replace the existing regulations 2022.

On Sunday, a senior NMC official told HT that by allowing 15% MSc with PhD candidates from medical colleges in the absence of MD candidates to teach MBBS students, NMC is “trying to address the shortage of faculties in medical colleges.”

Also Read:NMC draft rules allow non-med grads to teach medical students

In November 2024, the government informed the Lok Sabha that 2,106 out of 5,799 sanctioned faculty posts – 36.3% -- at 20 functional AIIMS are vacant.

Reacting to the new move, the principal of a government medical college from a North-Eastern state said the move to allow non-medical graduates to teach MBBS students is “nothing but trying to compromise with quality in medical education.”

According to the new draft norms, a specialist, consultant, or medical officer with at least 10 years of experience is eligible to become an associate professor.

“It is a wrong decision as those who are climbing the ladder from assistant professors as per incompetent or less knowledgeable in the respective subjects. Any medical faculty should first learn the art of teaching and research since promotion from assistant to associate needs four years of uninterrupted service with three publications. This was perfect and now specialists would enter the field of medical education neither knowing the art of teaching nor learning research skills,” the principal of the college added.

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