Going against the recommendation of the Mathema committee report to limit the number of undergraduate dental seats to 50, the Institute of Medicine (IoM) has allocated more seats to two medical colleges.

An IoM faculty board meeting on September 12 had decided to allocate 70 seats to Bhairahawa-based Universal College of Medical Sciences and 65 seats to People’s Dental College, Kathmandu.

The institute’s decision has two serious flaws. First, it is the jurisdiction of the Nepal Medical Council (NMC) to allocate seats to private medical schools before they can begin enrolment. Second, it has breached the Health Professional Education Policy (HPEP) recommendation that the government had decided to implement.

Interestingly, the IoM has complied with another HPEP recommendation to gradually decrease MBBS seats and limit it to 100. This time, the IoM has not allocated more than 115 seats to medical schools, while the number should be brought down to 100 in next admission session.

“We did not find any clear directives that the BDS seats should be limited to 50. In case of MBBS, the Ministry of Education has sent us a directive to limit the seats to 115 and we decreased the seats accordingly,” said Associate Dean of IoM Dr Sarad Onta. “The current allocation of BDS seats is based on the council’s guidelines. We are ready to correct the decision if we have a clear directive on the matter.”

A provision under the ‘Student Admission’ of the HPEP states that the medical colleges can admit a maximum of 50 students in each session. The UCMS is run by Khuma Aryal, who has been constantly courted controversy for his role in increasing medical seats without fulfilling the requirements. People’s College is owned by Sunil Sharma who is on the run after Nepal Police’s Central Investigation Bureau found that he owns a fake higher secondary degree.   

After the IoM wrote to its affiliated medical schools to begin admission process, the NMC strongly objected to the decision. The NMC had not been able to decide on the matter after instructions from Ministry of Health not to take any decisions after the CIAA objected to the political appointments of various office bearers at the NMC.