[Assam] Health varsity aims for uniform education standard (The Assam Tribune, 27.02.2009)

[Buljit Buragohain]

Health varsity aims for uniform education standard
 R Dutta Choudhury

 GUWAHATI, Feb 26 – Maintenance of uniformity in the standard of
medical education and carrying out collaborative studies and research
with other health universities of India and abroad will be two of the
major goals of the newly set up Srimanta Sankaradeva University of
Health Sciences, said the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Dr Umesh
Chandra Sarma. Talking to The Assam Tribune, Dr Sarma, who took
over as the first VC of the Health University on February 16, pointed
out that at present, the medical colleges of the State function under
different universities and though the syllabus is prescribed by the
Medical Council of India, there have been variations. Moreover, the
examinations are held on different dates with different question
papers, which created problems for the students seeking admissions in
the postgraduate courses. But with the establishment of the Health
University, all the medical colleges will come under the purview of it
and there will be uniform standard of education and examinations in the
State.

Dr Sarma pointed out that normally the medical college
hospitals come under the scanner of the public, but “we must remember
that the hospitals are only one component of the medical colleges and
there is need for more academic activities in the medical colleges. We
are planning to go for periodical assessment of the performance of the
teachers and the number of research papers they manage to bring out.”

The
VC said that initiating collaborative studies with other medical
universities of the country and abroad would be the second major goal
of the newly formed university. He said that such collaborative studies
and exchange programmes would open a new window to the health
professionals of the State in the days to come, which would be
beneficial to the State. The Government of Assam has also set aside
funds for training of the teachers of the medical colleges, which would
be of much help to the health professionals.

The university, at
the initial stages, will have only 70 persons right from the VC to the
fourth grade staff and the Government has sanctioned an amount of Rs 2
crore to start the university. Dr Sarma said that after it starts
functioning, the university would be able to sustain itself to a great
extent by its own revenue in the form of affiliation fees from the
colleges, Central projects, etc. He said that all private medical
institutions would now have to take affiliation of the new university
and a special team would be constituted for thorough inspections before
granting the no-objection certificate to any organization willing to
set up medical colleges or other medical institutions. He revealed that
only recently, a proposal was received from a private party for setting
up a dental college in the State and the proposal would be examined
soon.

Gradually the university would open advanced PG courses in
phases and launch orientation programmes for the teachers of the
medical colleges and other health institutions. The other main aims on
the agenda of the university include setting up of a research centre
primarily for research on local health problems and establishment of
study centres integrating all faculties and disciplines of health
sciences. Promoting equitable distribution of facilities in all the
medical colleges will also be one of the goals of the new university,
said Dr Sarma.

The first activity for the university would be to
constitute the Executive Council to formulate the regulations.
Interestingly, though the State Governor is the Chancellor of other
State universities, the Chief Minister is the Chancellor of the Health
University.

Dr Sarma revealed that medical education in Assam
has come a long way in the last few years with the establishment of new
colleges and other institutions, and all those would now come under the
purview of the new university. In 2002, Assam had three medical
colleges, one regional dental college, one regional nursing college and
three institutes of pharmacy. But the scene has totally changed with
three new medical colleges being set up. The admission into the Jorhat
Medical College should start from the 2010 session, while admissions
into the other two new medical colleges should start from 2011. One
medical institute to provide diploma course has started functioning in
Jorhat and the Government of India has requested the other States to
follow the model to solve the problem of shortage of healthcare
facilities in the interior places. The Government is also planning to
establish three institutes of paramedical sciences and three more
nursing colleges in a phased manner in the days to come.

(The Assam Tribune,27.02.2009)




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