The Senate Defence Committee on Monday passed the military-run National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) Bill empowering the medical university to set standards in medical education. Objecting to the Bill in its present form, Member Committee Farhatullah Babar suggested that a clause be added making it mandatory for the NUMS to follow the PMDC by-laws in matters of prescribing a uniform and minimum standards of courses and minimum qualifications and experience for faculty members.
"It is unprecedented and illegal to allow NUMS to also act as a regulator of medical education in some medical institutions just because those institutions are run by the military," he said adding the job of regulator is being carried out by the PMDC and not that of a military-run university NUMS.
He said the PMDC Ordinance 1962 amended from time to time including the latest amendment last month was a federal law meant to regulate all aspects of medical education throughout the country could not be by-passed. NUMS may become a world class medical university but it cannot be allowed to become its own regulator, he added.
He said that if PMDC had failed in performing its functions properly and was subject to criticism it did not mean that its work should be entrusted to other institutions. Let the PMDC be reformed instead of taking over its functions. He said the proposed law gave to the University's Academic Council all powers to regulate medical education independently and without reference to the PMDC law.
To resolve the issue Farhatullah Babar proposed, the NUMS Bill should be amended so as to recognise and give primacy to the regulatory role of PMDC in matters of regulating quality of education and qualifications for appointments in the new University in accordance with the PMDC law.
If civilian oversight was an anathema to a military-run institution then the Committee may pass the Bill in this regard and he will record his note of dissent, he said. Maulana Ataur Rehman said he agreed with the observations of Senator Farhatullah Babar. However, if Babar's objections could not stop the passage of the bill, then how could he stop it, he added.
The meeting presided over by chairman Mushahid Hussain was attended by senators Farhatullah Babar, Maulana Ataur Rehman, Lieutenant Genenral Abdul Qayum (Retd), Lieutenant General Salahuddin Tirmizi (Retd) and Brigadier John Kenneth Williams (Retd). Secretary Defence, Deputy Surgeon General of the Army and other senior officers of Defence Ministry and proposed NUMS also attended the meeting.
Comments
Comments are closed.