Around 78 percent of Candidates Fail in FMGE December 2023 exam

New Delhi: Around 78% of candidates who appeared in the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) for the December 2023 session have failed to clear the test.

The National Board of Examinations (NBE) recently released the results of 38535 candidates, who registered for the exam. Among them, a total number of 1,386 candidates were absent in the exam. Therefore, a total number of 37,149 candidates appeared in the test.

As per the results published by NBE, only 7,781 candidates have been successful in clearing the exam, which is a mandatory requirement for foreign medical graduates to be able to get registered as a doctor in India and commence practice.

Meanwhile, a total number of 30,046 candidates have failed the exam. Therefore, considering the 37,149 candidates who appeared in the test, this year, the pass percentage in the FMGE exam is around 20 % and around 78% of candidates have failed the test.

The results of 15 students have been withheld by NBE. "Results of the candidates whose face ID/documents are pending for verification and matters which are subjudice have been kept “WITHHELD”," NBE mentioned in the notice.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that for the June 2023 cycle of the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination, shockingly more than 87% of the candidates had failed in the exam. Only a very few candidates i.e. altogether 2474 medical graduates from abroad cleared the FMGE June 2023 test. However, what has shocked everyone is that a huge number of 21,180 candidates out of the total 24269 candidates failed the exam, therefore, resulting in the failure of more than 87% of the total candidates.

Also Read: FMGE June 2023 Results Out, More than 87 percent Candidates Fail the test

As per the latest media report by Education Times, experts have opined that the pass percentage of medical graduates from abroad depend on the country and institute where they pursued their medical education. While countries such as Phillippines, Bangladesh, and Nepal have been relatively providing better pass percentages, the number of successful candidates is relatively lower if the medical graduates pursued their study from countries such as Ukraine, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, and more.

Opining that the competency of the FMGs appears to be low because of the absence of any benchmark, Anuj Goyal, co-founder of Get My University told the Daily, "There is no common all-India licencing exam for Indian medical professionals; hence, there can be no common benchmark to check if the FMGE pass percentage is relatively low. The number of participants in the FMGE includes the majority of the candidates who are appearing for their repeated attempts. After the removal of repeat attempters, the actual number of FMGs who appeared for the FMGE is far less."

"MBBS students who complete their graduation from any Indian medical institute become licenced practitioners. Once the National Exit Test (NExT) is implemented, India will have actual data to set a benchmark, which will act as a check on the reality of medical education in India as well. However, countries such as the Philippines, Nepal and Bangladesh are some of the few countries that have consistently given the highest pass percentage of around 35% in FMGE," he added.

The daily adds that it becomes critical to draw a comparison between the performance of the countries since the data of the students who qualified for FMGE is not segregated by NBEMS. Goyal added, "The board should release the data of students who were able to qualify for the exam on their first attempt and those who appeared for their repeated attempts. Such data will help make country-wise rank chart of foreign medical colleges."

Around 10,000 students go to abroad on yearly basis to pursue medical education in countries like Russia, China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Georgia, Nepal, Ukraine, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. For the year 2015-2018, the pass percentage of students in Bangladesh was 27.1%, it was 36.2% in 2019, 35.8% in 2020. In China, around 11.7% of the students cleared during 2015-2018, 21.2% in 2019 and 12.9% in 2020.

Also Read: NBE notifies on Distribution of Pass Certificates to FMGE December 2023 candidates, details