CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu will urge the Union Education Ministry to bar those medical colleges not in possession of a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the state government from being granted deemed-to-be university status.
The government will also press for an amendment to the University Grants Commission (UGC) norms governing such protocol, Health Minister K G Arunraj said on Wednesday.
Addressing media persons at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) in Chennai, Arunraj said St Peter’s Medical College and Karpaga Vinayaga medical college secured deemed-to-be university status after the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University missed the deadline to respond to their NOC applications.
Two other colleges, Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Medical College and Srinivasan Medical College, being private institutions not affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University, had applied directly to the UGC without seeking a state NOC and secured the deemed-to-be university status, he added. The state will move court against the status conferred on the medical colleges, Arunraj said.
‘NalamAI’ launched
Meanwhile, the minister launched ‘NalamAI’, a WhatsApp chatbot for booking outpatient consultations, on a trial basis at the RGGGH. Separately, he launched a WhatsApp facility to generate outpatient slips, now made available at government hospitals across 22 districts, including Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu.
Review foreign medical grad exam results: Student body
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Medical Students’ Association-Foreign Medical Graduates Wing expressed concerns over only 12.78% of the candidates who took the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) conducted by the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) securing a pass. In a release, the outfit quoted students who appeared for the test on June 28 as saying the Paper 1 was very tough. Out of the 36,280 who appeared for the examination, only 4,635 passed. A large number fell just short of the qualifying mark, the outfit said, and urged the NBEMS to conduct a transparent review.