The Pakistan Medical Commission has registered three medical colleges in Balochistan after the students protested in Quetta and different cities of Balochistan for several days. Jhalawan Medical College, Khuzdar; Makran Medical College, Turbat; and Loralai Medical College are now registered under the PMC.
Balochistan Health Secretary Noor Ul Haq Baloch said that the Government of Balochistan had built a special committee to apply for the registration of these three colleges in the Pakistan Medical Commission. The committee members visited the PMC several times and invited its representatives to visit these colleges.
A team from PMC visited the three colleges last month and the hospitals they are attached with. After examining the educational, teaching and other facilities, the team approved the registration of the colleges. “Teaching process in these three medical colleges started in 2017 and currently four badges of students are under study. With 50 students in each badge, 600 students are studying in the colleges”, the health secretary was quoted saying.
The three colleges are have been fully functioning for the past few years, but they not registered in the PMC. As a result, the students aspiring to join these colleges could not appear in the NMDCAT, which is conducted by the PMC throughout the country. The students were forced to attempt a separate test, one that is conducted by the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto University in Islamabad.
Students in Khuzdar, Makran and Quetta took to the streets against this decision, saying that authorities have failed us. They said that the three colleges have been operating for years and the government has failed to register them under the PMC. Now the government is taking their failure out on us by forcing us to take a test different from the rest of the country, they said.
The protests garnered attention on the social media and the government was forced to register the three colleges under the Pakistan Medical Commission.