The article discusses the issues with medical education in India and how it affects the principle of equality.

Role of private entities

• Due to demand for high-quality medical care on the one hand and constraints on public resources on the other, private entities have been permitted to establish medical educational institutions to supplement government efforts.
• In the field of health care, there is a continuing shortage of health-care personnel.
• The infrastructure required for high-quality modern medical education is expensive.
• The three stated objectives of medical education has been — providing health-care personnel in all parts of the country, ensuring quality and improving equity.
• None of the three stated objectives of medical education has been achieved by the private sector.
• Though they are supposed to be not-for-profit, taking advantage of the poor regulatory apparatus and the ability to both tweak and create rules, these private entities, with very few exceptions, completely commercialised education.

Demand for regulation and equity

• There have been attempts to regulate fees, sometimes by governments and sometimes by courts.
•  These efforts have not been fruitful.
• The executive, primarily the Medical Council of India, has proven unequal to the task of ensuring that private institutions comply with regulations.
•  When the courts are approached, which issues are seen as important depends on the Bench.
• It was in this situation that led to the introduction of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate), or NEET-UG, as a single all-India gateway for admission to medical colleges.
•  Challenged in courts, after an initial setback, the NEET scheme has been upheld.

How NEET affected equity

• NEET may have improved the quality of candidates admitted to private institutions to some extent, but it seems to have further worsened equity.
• Under any scheme of admission, the number of students from government schools who are able to get admission to a medical college is very low.
• With NEET, the number has become lower.
• The high fees of private medical colleges have always been an impossible hurdle for students from government schools, whatever the method used for admission.

Way forward

• The basic cause of inequity in admission to higher educational institutions is the absence of a high quality school system accessible to all.
• Allowing government medical colleges to admit students based on marks in Standard XII and using NEET scores for admission to private colleges will be more equitable right now.

Conclusion

Only a resolute government, determined to ensure that economic policy facilitates quality and equity in education, can do it.

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