Rank colleges: govt prescription for improving medical education

Rank colleges: govt prescription for improving medical education

News:

The Union health ministry plans to grade and rank government-run medical colleges to improve the quality of medical education

Important Facts:

• The medical education department has proposed mandatory grading of all government medical colleges and for private institutions grading will be done at a later stage.
• National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), which grades IIMs in a similar manner, had started ranking medical colleges on its own in 2018.
• Ranking of medical colleges will be done on the basis of choices of students during counselling.
• India’s top five medical colleges according to the NIRF ranking 2018 are AIIMS, New Delhi, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, and King George’s Medical University, Lucknow

The NIRF parameters broadly cover

• Teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practices, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity, and perception.
• The significant sub-parameters are student strength, including doctoral students, faculty-student ratio, total budget and its utilization, research and professional practice,
• Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and patents filed, published, granted and licensed, percentage of women, economically and socially challenged students, and facilities for physically challenged students.

Significance:

• For good ranking and grades, the medical colleges will compete for best facilities.
• This will not only improve the quality of medical education but will also improve the medical colleges overall in terms of infrastructure and facilities
• The move will help in establishing the reputation of medical colleges on an international level as is the case with the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).