Is There A Solution For Teachers' Shortage?

Good teachers define a medical institution to a certain extent. Let alone quality, most of our medical colleges lack even the requisite number of faculty to conduct courses. Is the regulator listening?

- Harshita Das

India is staring at a deepening crisis in medical education. The country has over 450 medical colleges offering a variety of courses, but not enough teachers. As the number of medical colleges increased, so did the demand for teachers. However, demand always outstripped supply. “The number of government and private medical colleges have increased over the years and this has led to the increase in demand for teaching manpower, leading to shortage of teachers in the medical institutes,” explains Prof. Arun Kumar Dandapat, Dean and Principal of the MKCG Medical College & Hospital, Berhampur.

Dr. Prabhat Kumar Singh, Director AIIMS Patna, points out that the crisis is getting worse as the limited number of senior faculty venture out for better career prospects. “The crisis is that there is non-availability of teachers and lack of teachers’ development programmes. Senior faculty leaving AIIMS to join corporate hospitals is an important cause of concern and must be addressed at the earliest.”

How can this shortcoming be dealt with? As a first step, the Union Budget for 2017-18 sought to create 5000  postgraduate seats per year to ensure adequate availability of specialist doctors to strengthen secondary and tertiary levels of healthcare.