The National Medical Commission (NMC) has recently issued a draft guidelines for the qualification of teachers in medical colleges (Teacher Eligibility Quartia Regulation) in TEQ-Medical Institutions). In these guidelines, NMC has relaxed eligibility standards for non-teaching consultants, specialists and medical officers working in government hospitals. In addition, the eligibility criteria has also been simplified for the Diploma holders working as a senior resident in medical colleges or a specialist/medical officer in government medical colleges.
NMC has maintained a 2-year-old provision in the draft of its 2024 teacher eligibility criteria, according to which MSc and PhD degree non-medical graduates have been allowed to teach subjects such as anatomy, biochemistry and physiology to medical students.
According to this:
- The diploma holder appointed as Senior Resident before 8 June 2017, who is consistently working as Senior Resident in the same institute, will be eligible for the post of Assistant Professor.
- Diploma holders working as Specialist/Medical Officer for six years in Government Medical College will also be eligible for the post of Assistant Professor.
However, many medical professionals are opposing these new eligibility rules of NMC, while some consider it the right step. Protest groups say that this may affect the quality of medical education, while others believe that this was an essential step to meet the shortage of teachers in institutions. NMC released the draft of TEQ 2024 on 17 January 2024 and gave a week’s time to receive a response. If it is applied, it will replace the current regulation of 2022.
In the regulation of 2022, NMC had already allowed MSc and PhD degree holding candidates to be appointed as Assistant Professors for Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. At the same time, PhD was made mandatory in medical subjects for senior teaching rolls. TEQ 2024 has maintained provisions related to teaching, but has limited the role of such candidates as faculty.
A senior NMC official said that the NMC will always try to make a doctor of medicine (MD) degree holders in Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, but if they are not available, then MSc and PhD degree holders are not available in departments It will be appointed, although these appointments will be limited to 15 percent of the total posts.
Dr. Kabir Sardana, Professor of the Dermatology Department of Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, said that the move will negatively affect medical research and it is being done only to increase the number of so -called faculty. The Chief Conservator of the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA), Dr. Rohan Krishnan also called it ridiculous and said that it is wrong to allow diploma holders and non-medical graduates to teach MBBS students.
