PM Modi advocates for MBBS in mother-tongue, doctors oppose move

Such an opinion was expressed by the PM Modi on the occasion of Jan Aushadhi Diwas when he was quoted saying by NIE, "…they (students) will be able to study medical and technical education in their mother tongue so that the poor, middle-class and lower-middle-class children who haven't taken English in schools will also be able to become doctors."

Although the PM has favoured the idea of medical education in native languages, it has been vehemently opposed by the medical fraternity as they have termed it to be "impractical" and "not feasible".

Earlier, there had been many such initiatives of teaching MBBS in local languages including Hindi.

Also Read: MBBS in Hindi Not to be Recognized: NMC

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that the plan of providing medical education in Hindi was being considered both in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. While in the case of UP, the Government had received the proposal from the President of Hindi Bhasha Sansthan, in MP, the Medical Education Minister Vishwas Sarang had announced that a committee would soon be constituted for preparing medical syllabus in Hindi.

However, at that time, the National Medical Commission had strongly opposed such initiatives and the apex medical body had clarified that it hasn't received any such plans from any State Governments and the same wouldn't be feasible as well.

President of the Undergraduate Medical Education Board of NMC, Aruna V Vanikar had further clarified earlier that of any state government implements such a plan, it wouldn't be recognized by NMC.

In such a context, the announcement by the Prime Minister surely contradicts the earlier stand of NMC, the apex medical education regulatory body in India. While the demands for teaching MBBS in local languages had been at place for quite some time, a portion of the medical fraternity has always opposed such plans.

After the PM's announcement came, the Federation of All India Medical Association (FAIMA) also expressed similar views and opposed the move. Speaking to Medical Dialogues regarding the issue, Dr. Rohan Krishnan, the president of FAIMA said, "The Prime Minister announced that the students would be able to study MBBS in their local language. It is not possible as India is a multi-lingual country and there are several predominant languages in India. Further, in my opinion, diversing from the International Guidelines would ultimately lead to the decrease in the quality of education. The PM said that our students who could not afford to go to good schools, who had studied in the government schools, those students should also become doctors. However, I think instead of decreasing the standard of education in the medical colleges, the government should focus on increasing the standard of education in the schools."

"We have all seen that whenever MBBS is taught in the local languages in countries like China, Russia, Ukraine, those MBBS degrees do not hold proper value as they divert from the International guidelines. So, if the government proposes to teach MBBS in the local languages instead of English, the doctors from India would not be recognized Internationally and they would not get as much respect as they receive now," added Dr. Krishnan.

"Whenever Indian doctors go to other countries like England, USA, Canada, Australia, they get placed at renowned positions in there and they are accepted easily in those countries. Medical Education in India is internationally accepted and respected and diversing it would not bear good results," he opined.

Further pointing out that the NMC itself accepts MBBS degrees of six English speaking countries without any screening test, Dr. Rohan Krishnan pointed out that "in our own policy, we are focusing that those people who have been taught as per the International Guidelines are accepted here."

"This is not just any job as human lives are at stake. So, we cannot divert from International guidelines and dilute the quality of medical education," he added.

Meanwhile, Dr Rajeev Ranjan Prasad, a former member of the Medical Council of India also opposed the move and told the New Indian Express, "India is a multilingual nation. We will have to standardise the words so that it means the same in other local languages too. I am not able to understand what goal will be achieved by doing this. The government's move is a very impractical one."