PMC Clarifies Abrupt MDCAT Syllabus, Exam Amendments Matter

Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) on Tuesday clarified that there was a plethora of misinformation that is being peddled across social media platforms and news media on 'abrupt MDCAT syllabus and examination amendments'.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Oct, 2020 ):Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) on Tuesday clarified that there was a plethora of misinformation that is being peddled across social media platforms and news media on 'abrupt MDCAT syllabus and examination amendments'.

According to PMC, students, as well as key social media users, were claiming that the commission has added "many extra topics" to the MDCAT examination that are taught by federal boards across Pakistan.

This is simply presumptive conjecture stemming from a lack of understanding of PMC's structure and policies, it added.

It is a known fact that, in the past, some Admitting Universities had been consistently limiting their question bank to reduced topics from the FSc syllabus, resulting in an easier MDCAT exam for some compared to others.

This inequality in the level of difficulty of different provincial MDCAT exams consistently resulted in public objections, especially from Sindh and KP, who found the difficulty level of their MDCAT exams to be much higher than others, resulting in their students obtaining lower marks compared to MDCAT aspirants from other provinces and regions.

This also negatively affected the final merit of these students due to other students giving easier MDCAT exams, thereby acquiring higher marks.

After the dissolution of PMDC and the subsequent formation of PMC, it became apparent that certain vested interests were in a scramble to preserve the status quo of medical examination syllabi as well as the test in and of itself, it added.

This is why the need for a national standardized test was imperative, as it allowed aspirants from across Pakistan a "level playing field" in terms of merit when applying to medical colleges.

It added a level playing field was necessary as higher medical education is not only one of the most arduous disciplines to follow, but any unjust disparity in merit would ultimately lead to the overall experiences of medical students after their admissions to be severely lacking and unconducive to promulgating their careers in the medical profession.

"If a student is not sufficiently equipped with the requisite knowledge to pursue a higher education in medicine, they should not be admitted in the first place", it added.

PMC has not changed the MDCAT syllabus "abruptly", or at all for that matter. In fact, there exists no such syllabus for the MDCAT at all, therefore the issue of PMC changing the syllabus should be rendered null and void.

These domains include requisite knowledge in the disciplines of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and English. PMC recognized that different provincial higher education boards have varying curriculums, invariably creating differences in the syllabi taught in different domiciles.

That being said, the mandatory prerequisite for admission into medical colleges is still the stipulation of an aspirant having passed the F.

S.c (Pre-medical) or equivalent HSSC qualification.

Therefore, every student applying for admission in medical colleges should have studied and passed the relevant F.S.c or equivalent HSSC program needed to sit in an MDCAT examination, and subsequently advance to the next stage of their higher medical education.

This year, PMC took the overlap of all provincial boards' syllabi pertaining to the requisite disciplines to ultimately form an examination that serves to provide the aforementioned 'level playing field' for higher medical education aspirants across Pakistan, regardless of their domicile.

"In past years, we have seen institutions, such as the UHS, monopolize medical education and examination practices by providing preferential treatment to Punjab students by making exams in other provinces harder, thereby widening the chasm of merit when the educational outcomes of provinces were cross-referenced with each other." Furthermore, it should be noted that the Punjab board has historically created and peddled an F.S.c syllabus that has been subpar when compared to other provinces, it added.

To further promote practices of transparency, PMC invited all provincial universities and IBCC to review and select only those topics from each F.S.c syllabus which had already been selected by each of the admitting universities, thereby ensuring that no student anywhere in Pakistan would need to study beyond what they have already been studying from their F.S.c syllabus to give the MDCAT examination.

In addition to the review, PMC has also set up an Examination Review Committee to review any and all objections made by aspirants regarding the question paper immediately after the exam.

If the Committee finds that any of the flagged questions have been outside the common F.S.c syllabus, it will be removed and no student would be penalized or awarded any marks for that question.

To address the issues of domicile restrictions, it should be noted that according to PMDC's Section 6, Subsection 5 of the Admissions Regulations 2018 approved by the Supreme Court, it was stipulated that there would be no provincial domicile restrictions for private colleges.

PMC, however, has left the decision of provincial domicile to the executive authority of each province as it is their domain, according to PMC's Admissions Regulations for 2021.

It said that PMC is not in charge of creating syllabi as it creates the curriculum. A curriculum is a culmination of subjects which comprise a course that ultimately serves to meet a target. The target in this case being the production of Pakistani medical practitioners of the highest merit and competence, who would go on to populate our skilled medical cadre, serving the best interests of the people and the state of Pakistan, it added.