The Bangladesh Private Medical College Association has asked the health ministry to increase the quota for foreign students to 40% from the existing 25% for the current academic year (2013-2014).
Sources said the private medical and dental colleges put forward the proposal because they have been suffering from a fund crunch in recent years because of a fall in the number of foreign students.
They also said the ministry is scheduled to sit in a meeting on October 30 to make a decision on the request placed by the BPMCA. The meeting is likely to award higher foreign student enrolment quota to those colleges who fulfil certain conditions.
In the meeting, the ministry is also likely to fix $2,000 (Tk1.5m) as the admission fee for foreign students to get into a medical college, and $1,500 (Tk1.2m) for getting into a dental college, sources said.
These private colleges finance a major portion of their operational costs from the money they charge the foreign students as tuition fees.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the 54 private medical and dental colleges in the country have a combined capacity to accommodate 7,612 students. On that count, they can now admit up to 1,900 foreign students.
That also means the colleges can admit foreign students in up to 25% of their total number of individual seats.
The Dhaka Tribune has learnt that apart from a select few, most medical and dental colleges cannot attract foreign students. As a result, a big portion of the capacity goes unused.
The top colleges get a lot more applications from foreign students compared to their capacities. But they cannot admit more than 25% of their total seats although there is demand, depriving the country of significant amount of foreign currency.
The money that a foreign student pays in US Dollars for enrolling in a medical or dental college is considered export revenue for Bangladesh.
The private medical colleges charge each foreign student around $40,000-$50,000 (Tk3.1m-Tk3.9m) as tuition fees.
On the other hand, they charge Bangladeshi students initial enrolment fees ranging from Tk1m to Tk2m and monthly tuition fees of Tk5,000-Tk15,000.
The foreign students pay more than one and a half times the amount of the monthly tuition fees that Bangladeshi students pay for the five year MBBS and BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) degrees.
However, there are allegations that because of a lack of initiative from the health ministry, the private medical and dental colleges in the country did not get enough foreign students during the previous academic year (2012-2013).
Sources said the real reason behind the fall in the number of foreign students was the recent decline in the quality of education.
Statistics show that only 400 students enrolled in the private med schools during the previous academic year. Of them, 250 were from Nepal and 100 from India’s Kashmir.
With an aim to overcome the foreign student crisis, a few months ago the government organised the Bangladesh Medical Education Fair 2013 in India, Nepal and Maldives.
BPMCA officials said around 400 students from these three countries confirmed that they would joining. They also expressed hopes about being able to enrol more than 700 foreign students during this academic year.
The last date of application for foreign students is November 25.
BPMCA President Dr Moazzem Hossain told the Dhaka Tribune that if the health ministry agreed to extend the quota, the private med schools would be able to overcome the fund crunch.
Instead of admitting only local students, the private schools must also look to attract more foreign students for ensuring smooth operations, he said.