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  • Panel bats for hiking UG, PG medical seats.

    The standing committee on health for the 12 th five year Plan has proposed adding 18,000 additional undergraduate medical seats, and nearly 11,000 post-graduate seats between 2012 and 2017.

    In its report to the Union health ministry, exclusively available with TOI, the panel has recommended for the increase of undergraduate medical seats from 41,569 to 66,000 and PG seats from 20,868 to 31,000. It has proposed setting up of 30 new medical colleges with public financing in states that need them the most. It has recommended setting up of 132 Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) and 137 General Nursing Midwifery (GNM) schools through public financing with a focus on under-serviced areas and starting paramedical education courses in 149 government medical colleges and paramedical institutions in 26 states.

    Trained and competent human resource, the committee says, is the foundation of an effective healthcare system. India produces 30,000 doctors, 18,000 specialists, 30,000 AYUSH doctors, 54,000 nurses, 15,000 ANMs and 36,000 pharmacists annually. “Yet, geographic and rural-urban imbalance exists in training and availability of human resource. Medical colleges are unevenly spread across the states with wide disparities in the quality of education. Only 193 districts of the total of 640 districts have a medical college – the remaining 447 districts do not have any medical colleges,” the report says. Against a World Health Organization recommended norm of 23/25 health workers (doctors, nurses, midwives) per 10,000 population, India has 19 health workers per 10,000 (doctors-6, nurses and midwives-13).

    Besides, there are 7.9 lakh registered AYUSH practitioners (6.5 per 10,000). The urban density of doctors and nurses is four and three times, respectively, as compared to rural areas. “Such a skewed distribution results in large gaps in demand and availability, particularly for governmental health care facilities. The 12 th Plan aims to expand facilities for medical, nursing and paramedical education, creating new skilled health worker categories, enable AYUSH graduates to provide essential healthcare by upgrading their skills through bridge courses, establish a human resource health management system for improved recruitment, retention and performance; put in place an incentive structures, create career tracks for competence-based professional advancement and create a independent and professional regulatory environment,” the report adds.

    The committee has proposed that AYUSH doctors can be trained through short bridge courses to manage essential healthcare at primary care settings. Medical officers deployed in primary and secondary health facilities need to be multi-skilled so that the can manage “day to day conditions relating to obstetrics, anesthesia, psychiatry, pediatrics including neonatology, trauma care.” The ministry has been told to orient medical education to needs of the society, starting with examining the curriculum of medical education so as to equip graduates to independently function as general practitioners, possess hands-on skills, and be sensitive to issues like social determinants of health, equity, essential medicines and generics.

    Source : Times of India

  • Private Schools Announce Steep Increase In Fee.

    The New Year started on a bitter note for parents in the city with as many as 5,000 private schools on Sunday announcing a 10 to 40% hike in their fee structures effective from June 2012. School managements said that the steep hike in property tax was the reason for the fee hike.

    The government had announced a revised property tax structure for schools last month based on their locality, built-up area and space usage. It also mandated schools to follow certain fire-safety mechanisms. So, for instance, a school paying Rs 7,800, is now poised to pay as much as Rs 2.36 lakh in property tax. The amount would vary from one school to another but the percentage hike almost remains the same. Schools have also cited the impending hike in electricity and water tariff in 2012 as the reason behind the hike. Schools are expected to submit in writing to the state secondary education department their desire to have fees hiked. Managements of recognised schools that are known for their affordable fee structure have said that they will not be able to offer any fee subsidies this year. “The financial burden on schools has increased manifold. If the government wants us to keep the fee structures low they have to charge a low property tax,” said Srinivas Reddy, state president of the AP Private Managements’ Recognised Association. Recognised schools likely to go up by 25% from next year.

    The fee hike announcement comes at a time when the state government is planning to increase the number of recognised schools in the city so that the proper rearing of children cuts across socio-economic sectors. The number of such schools is expected to increase by 25% in the new academic year as per an assessment done by the school education department.

    Parents were predictably shocked with the sudden development. “Most schools which have decided to increase their fees this year are those that charge less than Rs 30,000 per annum right now. Parents will be hard hit even if the fees are hikes by 1%,” said a parent. Parents further said that despite the growth in the number of corporate/international schools, many old schools run by the state government are still preferred due to the quality of education they offer. “What attracts the parents to these schools is high-quality education at an affordable cost. If their fee also starts touching Rs 50,000 per annum it is as good as sending the children to one of the new schools which we wouldn’t otherwise prefer,” said a parent.

    Education today is a flourishing business and, given the huge demand for quality education, the number of private schools in the city has multiplied like it has in the rest of the country. Fee structures have shot over the years with schools adding facilities and activities that were unheard of until a decade or so ago. While these changes are welcome for the holistic development of a child, what is disturbing is the monetary burden on parents. Schools are beefing up their incomes to pay taxes. But they need to keep the interest of the parents in mind and ensure that education does not become an unaffordable commodity.

    Source : Times of India

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