Stand of private medical college not to teach PG if subsistence allowance is given

Medical colleges have been teaching post-graduate doctors by giving them a subsistence allowance of Rs 19,000 to 24,000 per month. But the government has arranged to give 8th level doctor or similar subsistence allowance. The salary of the 8th level is fixed at 48 thousand 737 rupees.

Although this arrangement is being implemented in government medical colleges, private ones have not implemented it. The government is going to make this arrangement mandatory for private medical colleges from this year. But the Association of Private Medical and Dental Colleges of Nepal, the umbrella organization of private medical colleges, has said that they cannot provide PG teaching by giving the subsistence allowance set by the government.

The deadline for filling the self-assessment form by colleges and institutes was fixed till last Friday for determining the seats of PG. But the Medical Education Commission director Sujanbabu Marhatha said that the medical colleges did not submit the form on time. Based on the form, the commission will assign the seats of the medical colleges. According to the form and monitoring done by the Commission, seats are determined subject-wise for MD, MS and MDS under PG.

'Doctors studying post-graduate studies work 28 to 72 hours a day. "Medical colleges are run by the services of such students," said an official of the commission, "The administrators have not applied for seat determination because they cannot give more allowance than the current one." Out of 1,200 PG seats across the country, about 700 seats are being taught in private schools. A fee of 23 lakh rupees has been fixed to study the 3-year course of PG. Students pay tuition fees. The private medical college owners said that they cannot give the money they have worked, rather than the government medical college, he said.

The commission said that the seat determination process has stopped after the college did not submit the application with the demands. There is a provision in the Medical Education Act that after the demand, the commission will monitor the colleges and then fix the seats. Commission Vice President Dr. Anjani Kumar Jha said that the management of private colleges did not agree that students studying in government should be given subsistence allowance by private colleges. "We have decided that the private sector should also give," he said, "They had also applied saying that they could not give." Officials of the association also informed Prime Minister Oli about their demands. Jha said that the decision on the matter will be made at the level of the Prime Minister. President of

association Dr. Gyanendra Karki said that since the private medical colleges could not pay the prescribed subsistence allowance, they decided not to teach the students. He also informed Prime Minister Oli, Health Minister Pradeep Paudel and Education Minister Vidya Bhattarai. "Prime Minister, Ministers are positive about us, but because the Vice President of the Commission is not positive, we are not able to enroll students," said Karki.

He said that even though the teaching fee was fixed at 23 lakh rupees, the teaching fee had to be paid as 25 lakh rupees from the subsistence allowance. "Until now, we used to give 720,000 rupees to the students every month for 3 years," he said.

He said that the matter should be decided by the government and the commission. The demand of the medical operators is to increase the tuition fee if there is a provision to give the allowance set by the government. According to the association, after meeting the Prime Minister, medical education should be taught in two academic sessions, students were not able to study when the PCL nursing college was closed.