As it is, there seem to be no agreement over this issue while at the very centre is the concept of private medical education in the country, although the GMOA is expressly not saying so. When observing these developments the fundamental question that would arise in the mind of any reasonable man is whether the GMOA and the medical students are opposing SAITM or the very idea of private medical education.
By Gamini Abeywardane
The SAITM
issue has come to the forefront of the political debate again pushing many
other issues to a side. While the student groups and the GMOA who have been
fighting against the SAITM have asked for its complete abolition and
nationalization of the Neville Fernando Hospital, the government maintains that
it would not nationalize the hospital, but take over it and run along the lines
of Sri Jayawardenapura Hospital. Meanwhile, arrangements are under way to
gazette the minimum standards for private medical education in the country.
As it is,
there seem to be no agreement over this issue while at the very centre is the
concept of private medical education in the country, although the GMOA is expressly
not saying so. When observing these developments the fundamental question that
would arise in the mind of any reasonable man is whether the GMOA and the
medical students are opposing SAITM or the very idea of private medical
education.
Private medical
education is quite an accepted thing everywhere in the world. Some of the best
medical schools in the world are private institutions, but governments in
respective countries monitor them with strict standards. Therefore, what is
needed here too is a proper monitoring regime for higher education with strict
standards for medical education. Such high standards should apply to all higher
education institutions in the country, be they private or state controlled.
It is a
well-known fact that standards are different even among the state universities.
The critics say that the standards in some of the medical faculties that have
been started later are lower when compared to the pioneering ones like Colombo
and Peradeniya universities. Therefore, a stringent system of uniform standards
will help to upgrade the general standards in all such medical faculties.Private sector higher education is quite popular and has a growing demand in the country. Currently, they have degree programmes practically in every field including all branches of engineering; law and allied medical sciences and often they are affiliated to reputed foreign universities. Most of the products of these institutions have ready employment opportunities while a large number of them go for higher education abroad finally migrating to more developed countries.
Nobody has
questioned the quality or standards of the degrees awarded by these
institutions while these graduates seem to have better employment prospects even
locally when compared to some of the products of our state universities because
of their better knowledge of English, IT, exposure and work attitudes.
Despite
extensive growth of private sector higher education during the last several
decades we have been struggling to launch even one proper private medical
school in our country. Every attempt to do so has been scuttled by the GMOA and
the medical students on grounds of poor standards. If the standards are poor they
can be improved as the country has enough facilities and infrastructure to do
so. Another ground for opposition has been the entry qualifications and the admission criteria. The minimum qualification for university education is technically three ordinary passes at the GCE (AL) examination and it is difficult to raise it for medical education. The reason is there is quite a number of our students who gain entry into medical faculties abroad with such minimum qualifications and come back after graduation and enter the medical profession here through the ERPM (Formerly ACT 16) examination.
Some of
those doctors have become brilliant professionals and occupy some of the
important positions in our health system. That shows the quality of the final
product cannot be determined only by the entry qualifications. With proper
opportunities and determination anyone can progress later in life and that
probably is a fundamental right that should not be violated.
International schoolsThe increasing presence of international schools in the country also provides a strong case for private medical education in the country. It is no secret that there are several hundreds of international schools and the number is growing fast because of the huge demand for English education. These schools have become a part of the national education system and it is unreasonable to continue to deny them opportunities for higher education in medicine.
The demand
for international schools grew over the last three decades because the state
through its network of schools have failed to provide the country with readily
employable school leavers with proper skills such as English language, IT and
other aptitudes which are vital in the modern environment. The opportunities in
some of the well run government and denominational schools in the cities where
these skills are imparted are not available to those who are not connected to
those school networks and the international schools were the natural answer to
the problem.
Now there are international schools in every
province and unlike in the past those who attend these schools are not from the
elite families. Therefore, the government has the responsibility to give them
equal opportunities and the habit of treating them as aliens who should go for
higher education abroad eventually settling down in a foreign land should stop.
Then there
are brilliant students from the urban schools who fail to gain entry into state
medical faculties even after obtaining high grades at the GCE (AL) exam because
they are behind the required marks by a few points while their peers from the
rural areas get in with much lower grades because of the system of
standardization currently in force.
All hopes of
such students to enter the medical profession are dashed despite many years of
hard work unless their parents have enough money to send them abroad for such
higher education. Despite hardships many parents do that sometimes by raising
the necessary funds through sale of valuable family assets and the total amount
of money the country loses annually for foreign medical education is a colossal
sum.
This
category would include sons and daughters of some of the eminent medical
specialists who are based in Colombo or in other big cities. Some of them may
be from rural beginnings, but their professional advancement requires them to
live in a city and send their children to popular schools closer to where they
live. And many of those children like to follow the footsteps of their parents
and dream of entering medical profession, but it’s not easy to enter a state
medical faculty from a Colombo school.
Fear of competition It is understandable that medical students fear that entry of private medical school graduates could become a threat to their comfortable future. Currently they get free education at the expense of the people of this country and are sure of a placement in a government hospital once they pass out as doctors. Naturally they will not like competition from any new sources either in the government hospitals or in private practice.
There are
many aspects to this issue and right to private higher education is something
that needs to be recognized and when it comes to medical education there has to
be stringent quality standards and the state has a huge role in supervising it.
The answer to the current problem lies not in abolishing private medical
education, but in upgrading its standards with adequate involvement of the
state and the medical council.
The first medical school in the country
was started by the British as far back as 1870 in Colombo and our medical
profession owes its origin to British medical schools particularly the
universities of London and Oxford. Good many of doctors still go to the UK for
their training and their qualifications are still highly revered among the medical
profession. That is one side of the story, yet even if one of those reputed
British universities want to come and set up a medical faculty here there bound
to be massive opposition in the current situation. 
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