Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has allowed public and private medical institutions to offer 85 per cent open merit seats and 15 per cent foreign quota seats for admissions.
According to an official of the PMDC, under its new admission policy for medical and dental colleges, if any seat of foreign or self-finance quota remains vacant due to unavailability of eligible candidates or otherwise, it will stand transferred to open merit quota and the student will be charged fee and charges prescribed for open merit seat.
He said that no candidate would be eligible for foreign quota seats in public and private medical and dental institutions unless he or she holds a permanent foreign nationality or dual nationality or overseas Pakistani status and who has physically studied and passed secondary school certificate (SSC) and HSSC passing 12th grade examination or equivalent from outside Pakistan.
He said that institutions would announce admission process in its constituent or affiliated colleges with details of open merit and foreign quota seats simultaneously and the merit list would be displayed on university’s official website.
He said selected candidates for medical and dental colleges will submit fee within seven days. Seats not filled by foreign graduates will be converted into local open merit seats with local student fee schedule.
Similarly, each college will display its fee and online official bank account number on its website. Tuition fee for local student will be Rs 6,42000 per year and that for foreign graduates will be USD 18,000 per year.
No student will be charged for any sort of donation, bribe, kick back or monetary gain in any form, he said and added that no public and private medical or dental institution or its admitting or affiliating university will hold its own admission, aptitude or interview while centralised provincial or regional admission test of any province or region will be applicable across the country.
According to the regulations, a local or foreign candidate must have minimum 60 per cent of marks in FSc (Pre-medical). The merit formula for the entry test will be 10 per cent Matric marks, 40 per cent FSc or equivalent, 50 per cent (entry test) for local students and 50 per cent (MCAT or SAT) for foreign students.
He added no private medical and dental institution or its affiliating university will advertise, process admissions in any manner or admit students before October 31 or before the display of final merit list of public-sector medical and dental institutions of respective province and region.
Every provincial and regional department dealing with admissions will, every year by notification under intimation to the council, authorise one recognised public sector medical university as exam conducting university to conduct a single test for admission in MBBS and BDS courses in that province.
He said that the admission to MBBS and BDS course in a medical and dental institution would be made strictly on the basis of merit and in accordance with regulations and any admission made in violation of merit or on the basis of monetary gain in any form and reported to or noticed by the council will be considered a violation of these regulations.
