The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Delay in release of notification for medical admission cause for concern

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jun 20, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Delay in release of notification for medical admission cause for concern

K. Ramachandran

Students say a fixed time-table will take the pressure off them While Anna University released the first notification on May 15, the Directorate of Medical Education is yet to release the notification date.

CHENNAI: The delay in the release of notification for admission to medical and paramedical courses has caused frustration among students and parents in Tamil Nadu.

While Anna University, as the coordinating body for engineering admissions, released the first notification on May 15 and later the amended notification following the Government's decision to do away with the entrance examination, the Directorate of Medical Education is yet to release the notification date.

The Directorate has a separate wing for medical admission. This wing normally issues the notification in the first or second week of June calling upon eligible candidates to apply for admission.

Directorate sources maintain that the authorities are ready with the model prospectus and application and are awaiting the official nod for the notification's release.

The sources say that Anna University, as an autonomous institution, can take its own decision on the dates for notification, the last date for receiving applications and the application format. However, medical education and its administration are directly overseen by the Health and Family Welfare Department in the State Government. Hence, every move has to be approved by the department and the Ministry concerned.

Students, however, claim this has become an annual affair. A fixed timetable will take the pressure off them, they say.

Red-tapism?

An administrator in a private paramedical college in the city, who is also the parent of an MBBS aspirant, says excessive bureaucratic involvement in routine decisions could be avoided if the admission process for medicine and paramedical courses was handed over to an autonomous body such as the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.

"If independent decision-making is faster the university will be quite competent to handle the situation. Also, the university can look at further refining the admission process and infuse a fixed calendar for issuing notification, getting and processing applications and conducting the counselling. Anyway, the model and protocol for admissions is available readily in Anna University's engineering admissions," the parent adds.

A top-ranking student from Erode, who called a couple of city newspapers for information on medical admission, says the uncertainty had made her anxious.

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