DNA Explainer: Here's why Ukraine-returned medical students cannot be given direct admission to Indian colleges

Amid uncertainities that loom large, Indian medical students who were forced to return back to India from war-torn country Ukraine, leaving their medical studies midway, sat on a protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Sunday. The students urged the Central government for making arrangements to help them complete their studies in state universities.

Around 300 parents and students from across the nation under the Parents Association of Ukraine MBBS Students demanded the government ensure the evacuees enrollment in the Indian institutes to complete their remaining education. "The government should save our children's careers the way they saved their lives and brought them back from Ukraine," news agency ANI quoted one of the parents.

On April 16, nearly 100 MBBS students from Odisha, who returned from Ukraine, met the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in Delhi and submitted a memorandum seeking admission into medical colleges in India. The students stated that they have been facing issues getting admission in India since their return.

Read | Students evacuated from Ukraine hold protests in Delhi, seek admission to Indian medical colleges

These students requested the minister to provide them admission in MBBS courses in Indian institutions.

What will happen to 20,000 medical students?

The National Medical Commission, in a notification issued on March 4, had said that foreign medical graduates whose internships were pending due to compelling situations, like war, are eligible to complete the remaining part of their internship in India, but there are no directions for those in the initial years of their courses.

Over 20,000 medical students, who fled war-torn Ukraine, their careers are at stake. In March, the government told the Supreme Court that it was looking into the request to allow the students who had returned from Ukraine to continue their education in India. 

According to educationist CS Kandpal, there were about 18,000 Indian students studying medicine in Ukraine, it is not possible to provide immediate admission (in Indian colleges) to all these students. Kandpal says that seats are already full in almost all medical colleges. In such a situation, it does not seem to be possible to have any immediate arrangements for these students.

Why direct admission to medical colleges not possible?

There is a proper procedure to get admitted into colleges in India and students cannot be given direct admissions. 

The students are not being offered direct admissions because students in India get admissions into medical colleges on merit and providing direct admission would dilute the entry standards of Indian medical colleges.

The students who are returning from Ukraine have had a different system of teaching and curriculum which is not the same as the Indian medical curriculum. However, till such time that these (Ukrainian) universities open up again, India is trying to explore options where the students can continue their learning and training.

Unlike some other courses, medicine cannot be taught online, without patients and hospitals. More ideas are being generated about the use of digital technology in medical education. As doctors, labs, patients, and equipment are needed to learn medicine fully, the authorities cannot use the online mode of education.