Beware of Chinese medical degrees

 Azmath and Mathang Seshagiri, TNN

BANGALORE: Like Chinese goods flooding the Indian market, a few education consultants are now bombarding gullible students with offers of Chinese MBBS degrees.

If these consultants are to be believed, there's no need for you to take the CET or Comed-K's UGET.

You'll even be spared the pre-admission process. These agents offer MBBS seats in Chinese colleges with Indian curriculum! They claim TOEFL/ILETS exams too are not necessary.

As an added incentive, P-G study comes free. The police warn that there's a great degree of getting cheated.

Before going in for any such admission, get in touch with the Chinese Embassy to check out the condition of the university, they add. Last year, a group of Indian students who enrolled for an MBBS course in Xinxiang Medical College in China filed a complaint with the Indian Embassy in China that despite assurances at the time of admission they were not provided with properly qualified English-speaking faculty. For over two months, they ran around to get their problems solved. But they could not find the agent whom they were asked to contact anywhere in the city.

Later, the Indian Embassy in China wrote to the Union government and Medical Council of India, saying students who sought admission in China were facing difficulties lacking necessary information. "A code of conduct could be devised to safeguard students against claims on quality and cost of education which bear no correlation to conditions on the ground in various universities/colleges in China,"it said.

Like tours, these 'medical degrees' too come in a package. It includes four-year stay in China or Ras Al Khaimah (UAE), tuition fee, Indian food and return air fare. The price — ranging from Rs 6 to 10 lakh which is negotiable. After the four-year stay, students will have to undergo one-year clinical training in India, Nepal or Mauritius following this, students get degrees purportedly issued by a Chinese or Dubai university.

Bangalore has at least half-a-dozen such consultants operating in Indiranagar and HAL areas. Bangalore police have registered over 100 cases of cheating against them who have swindled crores of rupees in 2003 and '04.

Joint commissioner of police (crime) M.C. Narayana Gowda said: "We are going to check the credentials of all agents offering medical seats here and abroad.We will write to the Chinese Embassy and get a clarification on whether the degrees being offered here are genuine or not."

"Some agents could be taking aspiring doctors for a ride by offering degrees in a hassle-free manner in a foreign land for a lesser price. Such degrees are useless here and could be fake ones,"he added.

The MCI and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences say degrees offered abroad are valid only if it has WHO approval. The WHO then notifies MCI about them. "It is not that all Chinese universities are fake. Before seeking admission, check with the Embassy and find out whether it is recognised," is the advise to students from the MCI. 

 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2005-06-04/bangalore/27866788_1_indian-embassy-admission-chinese-goods