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Medical colleges across the country are fraught with various problems including shortage of teachers, laboratories and lack of infrastructural facilities.
The quality of medical education is not improving due to such problems persisting for quite a long time.
Many medical colleges do not have adequate number of teachers to teach MBBS students physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology, microbiology, community medicine and anatomy.
Insiders say shortage of teachers is ‘more acute’ at the private medical colleges while the insufficient number of hospitals and research facilities add to the woes of the medical colleges.
The private medical colleges are also facing shortage of dormitories, libraries, playgrounds and other co-curricular facilities.
Most of the colleges don’t have required number of classrooms and attached hospitals though medical colleges are called teaching hospitals, they added.
According to Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BM&DC), there should be one lecturer for every 10 students and one subject-wise teacher (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor) for every 25 students.
At least 77 teachers are needed at a college where 50 students are enrolled per year for five academic years. If there are 100 students per academic year there should be 154 teachers.
The DGHS has recently published the information on 73 private medical colleges on its website. However, 55 colleges did not provide any information on the number of their teachers.
Only 18 out of the 73 private medical colleges provided information on teachers but none of them have met the BM and DC criteria for the number of teachers.
Acknowledging the fact about the crisis of teachers Prof Dr AHM Enayet Hussain, DG of the Directorate General of Medical Education (DGME), told The Business Post: “Our honorable minister (Health) has already declared to resolve the problem of shortage of teachers and he is trying his level best.”
“We have no other problems at medical colleges,” he said, adding that they were trying their level best to ensure quality medical education and supplying qualified medical graduates to boost the medical sector.
According to DGHS Health Bulletin published in 2020, around 54 percent of the 691 sanctioned posts of professors at medical and dental colleges and institutions run by the government were lying vacant.
Around 55 percent of the 1,162 posts of associate professors and 38 percent of the 1,948 posts of assistant professors, 64 percent of the 634 posts of senior consultants, 76 percent of the 3,940 posts of junior consultants were also lying vacant.
Besides, private medical colleges are being run by less than 50 per cent of teaching staff, said DGHS officials.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Education Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) report-2020 showed that the number of teachers was 9,807 against 50,174 students at 106 public and private medical colleges across the country.
Operation should be stopped if any private medical college fails to maintain quality because many patients are going abroad every year for treatment due to weakness in the medical sector, educationist Prof Kamrul Hassan Khan.
The number of patients going abroad will further increase if medical education becomes questionable in Bangladesh, he said.
Dhaka Medical College Principal Prof. Dr Md Titu Miah told The Business post that they had crisis of teachers of basic subjects like physiology, anatomy but the government has taken initiatives to settle the problem like extension of job after retirement of teachers.”
It is true that there are some limitations at the medical colleges but the government is working to resolve the problems to ensure standard education at the medical colleges, he added
Bangladesh Medical College’s Principal Prof Dr Paritosh Kumar Ghosh told The Business Post: “There is shortage of teachers at the medical colleges
but we have no such crisis as about 200 teachers are working at our college.”
Currently, there are 116 recognized public and private medical colleges in the country where the number of seats for MBBS course is 11,129.
There are 4,350 seats at the 37 government medical colleges while 6,354 seats at private medical colleges.
Apart from them, six medical colleges are run by the Bangladesh Armed Forces with 425 more seats for MBBS.
Inadequate infrastructure at medical colleges
Most of the private medical colleges do not have the required infrastructure. Infrastructures of 62 percent of the colleges cannot accommodate their students.
According to the establishment and management policy of the private medical college, colleges and the hospitals should be in separate buildings at the same place but most of the medical colleges don’t have such infrastructures.
An analysis of the information on DGME website showed that 45 percent of institutions have colleges and hospitals on the same campus.
Enough space is needed for classrooms, lecture theaters, libraries and laboratories at medical colleges while a space of 2000 square feet is said to be ideal for one student but 62 percent private medical colleges do not have such space.
Around 8 percent of the institutions have not submitted any information over space to the DGME while 30 percent of the colleges said they were running their institutions with proper space.
Only 42 percent of institutions say their hospital’s size is adequate as per the condition set by the authorities for the medical colleges.
Not enough patients at hospitals
Hands-on learning is very important in medical education and students get this learning opportunity at hospitals of the Medical Colleges. Apart from the classroom lessons, students get hands-on learning from patients of the hospital.
As per rules, to start a medical college with 50 students, it is mandatory to have a hospital with 250 beds. If there are 100 students, the hospital will have 500 beds.
It means there will be five-patient beds against one student and 70 percent of the hospital beds should be filled with patients.
But this important condition is not followed at the hospitals. The data shows 70 percent of the beds in 68 percent of the private medical college hospitals are not filled with patients.
Even, there are hospitals that have only 10 percent of patients and no information was found in this regard from two colleges while Ibrahim Medical College said their hospital seats were filled with 100 per cent patients always.
At least four meeting of Governing Body or Governing Council should be held in an academic year but none of the 73 private medical colleges fulfill the condition.
Talking to The Business Post, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) former Vice-chancellor Prof Kamrul Hassan Khan said: “The government medical colleges are facing teachers’ crisis while the private medical colleges are facing crises of teachers, hospitals and patients.”
He said there is lack of proper monitoring at the private medical colleges.
“There is no scope for compromise over quality of our medical education because the life of people is at the hands of doctor. We should give proper attention to the issues including course curriculum, teachers and training,” he said.
