Fewer seats and high admission costs for medicine in India driving students to Ukraine
Categories: US Education News
Vivek Vijayan returned to his home in Thrissur, Kerala on March 4. Like many others in war-torn Ukraine, his safe passage out of Kharkiv in the eastern part of the country was a harrowing experience. Vivek and his friends braved bombs and bullets in Kharkiv before managing to get on a 20-hour train ride to Lviv on the western side. Stranded with no transport, they decided to go by foot to the Poland border, walking 10 hours before finally crossing to safety. “A few of my friends got hypothermic shock during the walk, but they are okay now. We are all safe,” says Vijayan, a third year medical student at Kharkiv National Medical University. Over 18,000 Indian students have been evacuated from Ukraine since February 24 when Russia invaded the former Soviet state. Like Vivek, a majority of these students are pursuing medicine in universities across Ukraine – a fact that has puzzled many in India. TNM spoke to a few Indian students who have returned from Ukraine to find out why they chose to pursue medicine in a country over 5,000 kilometers away. Out of the 88,120 MBBS seats across India, 43,310 are in government medical colleges in India. The competition is intense – more than 15 lakh students appeared for the NEET exam in 2021, while only around 8 lakh qualified. It’s no different for postgraduate medical seats in India. There are 55,595 postgraduate medical seats across the country. In comparison, 1.6 lakh students appeared for the NEET-PG exam in 2021. The easier admission process and the high rate of acceptance in Ukrainian medical colleges is another factor, say students. Harshavardhan Nandyala, who hails from Kadapa in Telangana, says most medical colleges in Ukraine admit Indian students only if they have cleared NEET. While documents like the Class 12 certificate and the NEET score are verified, Harshavardhan says there is no separate entrance exam to be admitted into a medical college in Ukraine. “After admission, a basic Biology and English language test is conducted before our first semester,” says Angel. For many Indian students, Ukraine also offers an opportunity to live and work in Europe after graduation. “A medical degree in Ukraine has European credentials. That was a plus point for me,” says Sai Krishna. Vivek says several medical colleges in Ukraine also offer transfer programmes with other European universities. “We can transfer in the third or fifth year to a college in Germany and continue our education there,” he points out. While the future of their education in Ukraine may be uncertain, the Consortium of Deemed-to-be-Universities of Karnataka may hold a ray of hope, offering to accommodate at least 1,000 students in their medical colleges. The consortium has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It will, however, have to get the approval of the National Medical Commission and the Union government.