The committee comprised members from the Niti Aayog focused on reforming the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, which regulated medical education
Too many regulations, especially on professional institutes, ended up causing more damage than good, suggested Bimal Patel, president of CEPT University, while speaking at the 11th convocation of the university on Saturday. The convocation saw its 500 students graduate. Endorsing the view of the parliamentary committee set up to reform the Medical Council Act, which has also spoken against the regulation of fees in private medical colleges, Patel, said, “We also hope to see some of the benefits of such enlightened regulation accrue to CEPT, especially greater flexibility with respect to our admissions and greater financial autonomy for our functioning.”
The committee comprised high-ranking members from the Niti Aayog focused on reforming the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, which regulated medical education in the country. In September last year, CEPT University was forced to roll back a near 200 per cent fee hike for its undergraduate courses after protests by students and parents. Patel said, “Regulators should not be focused on rigidly insisting on institutions meeting input standards.
The new proposed method of regulating medical education is focused on learning outcomes rather than inputs. The report of the committee says and I quote, “the input based regulatory philosophy underlying the current MCI has turned into a high entry barrier facing education providers without corresponding benefit in terms of delivery of quality medical education.
Hence, the NMC regulation is to be overwhelmingly based on outcomes rather than inputs.” According to Patel, while the regulations were well-intended, they were “often so poorly structured and so rigidly framed that they end up causing more damage than good”. “Typically, higher education institutions in India are required to meet minimum standards. Thus, for example, they are required to have minimum prescribed infrastructure, or minimum number of teachers, or minimum numbers of books in their libraries. If they meet these standards, they are given ‘recognition’ and licensed to operate. No attempt is made to find out if the students are actually learning or not. If the objective is ensuring that quality education is being imparted, one should focus on what the students are learning”, he said.
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“If institutions such as CEPT University, that have already put in so many systems to promote excellence in their functioning, are to truly excel, the regulatory environment, at least for such institution, is going to have to be far more enlightened than it is today,” he said. Director of Sabarmati Ashram Tridip Suhrud was the chief guest at the convocation. The maximum students graduating from any one course was 99 — Master of Urban and Regional planning, with just one getting a Master of Planning degree.