National Assembly Standing Committee Demands To Conduct MDCAT Again

The national assembly standing committee on the national health services, regulations and coordination has demanded to conduct the medical and dental college admission test again. The officials have said that the earlier held MDCAT should be canceled and to secure the future of the students the test should be conducted again. The meeting was held a few days back in which it was recommended after the discussion on the results of MDCAT. The committee said that due to the discrepancies in the MDCAT results it is better to hold the test as per the new standards as the students are not satisfied with the test commenced by the Pakistan medical commission. Moreover, it had also been recommended that PMC should allocate the seats to private medical colleges and determine their fee structure. 

The committee further said that passing marks of the MDCAT test should be no more than 50%. Moreover, it has been added that the professional staff members should be hired by the Pakistan medical commission. This year the MDCAT was held at the national level and the provincial governments claimed that PMC had taken away their basic right. The entrance test should be organized at the provincial level to determine the eligibility of the students to take admission in the medical and dental colleges. 

After the announcement of the result by the Pakistan medical commission, there were some errors found in it. Afterward, the updated result was issued by correcting the errors in the announced result. As per the result, the failing students in Sindh were 74.51% and the success rate of the rural and urban parts of Sindh was comparatively low as compared to the other provinces. The Sindh ministers had also previously announced to not accept the MDCAT results and declared that they will set up their own medical and dental commission that will conduct the test across the province for the medical colleges in Sindh. Meanwhile, the University of Health Sciences has issued the final merit list for MBBS and BDS for the public medical and dental colleges in Punjab.