BENGALURU: It's admission season and a ripe time for medical universities from foreign countries to attract undergraduate aspirants from the state. Education agencies and agents representing various overseas universities are now active across the state.
Such agents have set up camps in star hotels in the city, and have been contacting undergraduate medical seat aspirants after gathering their contact details from the public domain. Many candidates who have appeared for the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) this year and are awaiting results said they are being harassed with calls from agencies and agents.
A students told The New Indian Express, "I have been getting calls every day from some agencies asking me to attend counselling sessions at some star hotels about admission to medical courses in foreign countries. Even after saying that I am not interested, I have been getting calls every day and am really irritated."
Another student, Bhoomika C R, who is also waiting for her NEET scores, said, "I wonder how they can access our personal details. It is really disturbing. Not just one, I am getting repeated calls from at least two-three agencies."
Following contact numbers given by some students, The New Indian Express contacted a few agencies and agents operating from the city. They revealed that the admissions will be available at medical universities in Canada, Russia, USA, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, the Caribbean and Europe.
Talking to The New Indian Express, a person working with a Chennai-based agency, which has a branch in Bengaluru, said, "We provide admissions to universities located abroad. Most of them are government medical universities."
As per the information available from agencies, these are 5.8-year MBBS course for which the package starts from `9.9 lakh and goes up to `18 lakh a year. "This includes course fee, accommodation, flight and Visa charges," said the agency person.
According to experts from the field, the main reason students go for foreign universities is because of the increasing fees for medical education in India.
Dr Sachidanand, director, medical education, said, "As the cost of medical education is increasing here, many students prefer to get it done outside. But they (aspirants) have to appear for a licence test conducted by the Medical Council of India once they are back in India after completion of the course." And another reason for students choosing these universities is the difficulty in getting into good colleges here with NEET ranking.