Medical students in their freshman (first) year in Tamil Nadu’s 17 government and eight private medical colleges affiliated with Tamil Nadu’s Dr. M.G.R. Medical University (TNDMMU) are in despair following declaration of the first-year MBBS exam results on September 30. Reason: over 40 percent of the 3,800 first-year MBBS students enroled in the state’s 25 colleges, who wrote their exams in August, have failed in one or more subjects and will have to write a re-exam in February to be promoted to the second year of the five-and-a-half-year MBBS degree programme. Three students in private colleges resorted to the extreme option of suicide.
This unprecedented percentage of failures in the first-year MBBS exam has shocked students, parents and the general public as the majority of students admitted into the state’s medical colleges are academic toppers with impressive grades in their class XII school leaving exams. (The Tamil Nadu government scrapped entrance exams for professional colleges in 2005-06). The incremental failure rate is being attributed to changes in the examination and evaluation systems made by TNDMMU.
On January 14, the university issued a notification stating that first-year students would have to secure at least 50 percent in theory, practicals, viva voce and internal assessment exams, to be promoted to second year. First year students have to write two theory papers (parts I and II) in each subject — anatomy, physiology and bio-chemistry — taught in the first year, and secure at least 50 percent in each part, and also a minimum 50 percent in practicals, viva voce and internal assessment, to be declared passed. In previous years students had to average 50 percent in part I and part II to be promoted.
"We have to improve the quality of medical education to produce more competent practitioners as they are responsible for human lives. One of the reasons for a larger percentage of failures in the first year exams this year is because the majority of them come from Tamil-medium schools in small towns and villages and cannot adapt easily to English language teaching. However, there are also systemic problems within TNDMMU which neither follows a uniform evaluation process nor has a system of re-evaluating answer papers, thus leaving students at the mercy of examiners,” says Dr. J.A. Jayalal, professor and laparo-scopic surgeon of the Kanyakumari Government Medical College, and general secretary of the Indian Medical Association (Marthandam).
Experienced faculty members of medical colleges are unsurprised by the rising percentage of failures in the first year medical exams year after year. They attribute it to the abolition of the common entrance test to gauge students’ aptitude for medical education. The Jayalalitha-led government abolished entrance exams for admission into professional study programmes in 2005-06 on the reasoning that it would create a level playing field for rural students aspiring for admission into professional colleges. Since then, although there is tough competition to enter medical colleges with admission cut-offs rising to 98 percent, the emphasis has shifted to securing marks by rote-learning rather than acquiring conceptual skills.
Students, however, find fault with the new evaluation norms stipulated by TNDMMU, which according to them contravene Medical Council of India (MCI) norms. Over 400 first-year students across the state have filed writ petitions in the Madurai bench and Madras high court. While Justice T. Raja of the Madurai bench has granted an interim stay on the operations of the January 14 notification of TNDMMU on October 11, a single judge in Chennai has refused to stay the notification. Moreover, a large number of first-year medical students have boycotted college and are awaiting the final decision of the Madras high court.
“The new pass percentage fixed by TNDMMU does not conform to MCI regulations which man-date an average 50 percent in Part I and Part II to pass. We are determined to challenge the university’s arbitrary new norms in court,” says Ragini, a first-year medical student of the Salem Medical College.
TNDMMU’s counter affidavit filed in the Madras high court denies that the university’s January 14 notification is repugnant to MCI regulations. Quite clearly, although the university’s objective of raising standards of medical education is laudable, it has to prepare the ground by rectifying systemic problems of faculty shortage and poor teaching practices in several govern-ment colleges, while introducing greater transparency in the examination and evaluation processes. A mere decree from on high is unlikely to enable attainment of this laudable objective.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)