The private medical colleges of the Punjab have agreed to halt their admission process and they would not ask the applicants to deposit fees and dues before the display of first merit list for public sector medical and dental colleges of the province.
A number of private medical and dental colleges of the province also agreed in principle to centralise their admission process by voluntarily handing over their admissions in MBBS and BDS to University of Health Sciences (UHS) Lahore, to be completed in the same way as in public sector medical and dental colleges of the Punjab.
The decisions in this regard were made in a meeting held here at UHS on Friday with UHS Vice Chancellor Professor M. H. Mubbashar in chair. The principals and representative of all 14 affiliated private medical and dental colleges attended the meeting.
The vice-chancellor emphasised that private colleges should develop a code of ethics and strictly follow it. UHS Vice Chancellor apprised the participants that the university would conduct another entrance test on Thursday (October 14), in pursuance of the orders of Lahore High Court, for all those candidates who had secured 60 per cent or above marks in FSc or equivalent examination, and who could not earlier appear in the entrance test conducted on July 20. He said that because of litigation admissions in public medical colleges were delayed this year.
He stated that, as per PMDC's regulations, private colleges could not carry out their admissions and ask people to deposit fees before the merit lists of public sector colleges were displayed. He expressed his concern that a majority of private colleges had started rather completed their admission process and now they were asking people to deposit fees.
"Some of these applicants have scored very good marks in FSc and the central entrance test conducted by UHS. But they are not sure whether or not they would get admission in any public medical college. They are, therefore, forced to pay fees in private sector colleges to secure a seat for themselves," he added.
He further said that private colleges should wait until the admissions in public sector colleges were completed. The representatives of private sector medical colleges agreed to halt their admission process till the display of first merit list for public sector medical colleges.
It was also agreed that private medical colleges would not give any weightage to test conducted by themselves. However, they could hold an aptitude interview and give it an appropriate weightage, which would be defined, by the university. The merit list would be prepared according to the formula laid down by the PMDC according to which the weightage of Matriculation would be 10 per cent, FSc 40 per cent and that of centralised entrance test would be 50 per cent.
The participants were also told that as per PMDC regulations private medical colleges were required to complete their admission process by November 30 and submit the list of their applicants and selected candidates to the university.