Several private medical colleges have allegedly admitted students with scores as low as 110, ignoring the cut-off mark of 120 set by the health ministry.
Sources said several medical and dental colleges have “secretly” admitted around 600-700 students who had scored as low as 110.
The fresh admissions came as the original deadline for private medical and dental colleges expiring yesterday.
Among those who allegedly violated the admission cut-off mark, Samorita Medical College, a Dhaka-based private medical school, openly flouted ministry directives by publishing advertisements on national dailies calling for the admission of students with scores as low as 110.
Senior officials of the health ministry and the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) told the Dhaka Tribune that they had noticed the advertisement, which they termed illegal and a clear violation of the ministry directive.
Dr ABM Abdul Hannan, director (medical education and manpower development) of the DGHS, said the ministry had been informed about the advertisement and the private medical college has also been asked to clarify how they published the advertisement, violating the direction of the ministry.
Aiyubur Rahman, an additional health secretary, told the Dhaka Tribune that the health ministry had not issued any instruction to admit students with a score of 110, adding that the Bangladesh Private Medical College Association (BPMCA) failed to produce any document despite claiming that the High Court had issued an order in this regard.
Shah Md Selim, secretary general of the BPMCA, yesterday said the high court had issued an order to the health ministry for allowing students in private medical and dental colleges with the score of 110.
However, he said no new student would be admitted in violation of the previously set cut-off mark, before a full copy of the verdict was received.
Selim said the BPMCA would submit an application to the health ministry to further extend the admission deadline, which had already been extended several times before.
He hoped to get the full copy of the High Court judgement within a couple of days, which would be submitted to the ministry along with the application for time extension.
However, 600-700 seats would remain vacant even after the cut-off mark would be lowered, Selim added.
Seeking anonymity, several senior officials of the BPMCA told the Dhaka Tribune that the ministry did not respond to their previous application for relaxing the original cut-off mark of 120.
On February 9, the BPMCA held a meeting in the city, where statistics revealed that a large number of seats were vacant at different medical colleges. The Sikder Medical College had around 40 to 50 seats vacant, while there were 45% vacant seats at TMMS Medical College, 40-50% at City Medical College, 35% at Munnu Medical College, 50% at Southern Medical College, 25% at East West Medical College, 20% at Taerunessa Medical College, 50% at North Bengal Medical College, 50% at Shahabuddin Medical College, 50% at Mainamoti Medical College, 15% at Eastern Medical College, 60% at MH Samorita Medical College, 45% at Dr Sirajul Islam Medical College, 45% at Northern International Medical College, 50% at International Medical College and 60% at Nightingale Medical College.
In accordance with a decision reached at the meeting, BPMCA Treasurer Ikram Hossain Bizu filed a case on February 10 with the bench of Justice Kazi Rezaul Hossain and ABM Altaf Hossain.
According to BPMCA senior officials, the judges then passed an order to admit students with scores as low as 110.
