Don’t blame Indian students for the failings of successive governments 

Of the 76,548 international students enrolled in Ukraine's universities, 18,000 are from India. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

The claim by Union Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi that 90 percent of Indians who study medicine abroad fail to clear qualifying exams in India, is both unbelievably insensitive in the light of their plight in war-torn Ukraine and also flawed in its logic.

No country has ever built a world-class industry on the back of a few brilliant people. India's globally competitive IT services sector wasn't built merely by a few gifted founders but by the lakhs of coders and systems administrators and analysts, among others.

If India is severely deficient in healthcare, it is because there isn’t a large enough pool of educated medical professionals to fill the need for trained medical personnel which is hugely in excess of what is currently available. According to IndiaSpend, India’s doctor-population ratio of 1:1,404 is abysmal as compared to the World Health Organization (WHO) prescribed ratio of 1:1,000. The country has 1.7 nurses per 1,000 population, 43 percent less than the WHO’s norm of 3 per 1,000. The 15th Finance Commission, too, in its report submitted to the government in 2020 reported: “There is also a significant shortage of all categories of health workforce in government health facilities.”

The crisis is man made and the blame lies squarely with successive governments that have failed to ramp up the educational infrastructure. The war in Eastern Ukraine has been on since 2014 with more than 10,000 civilian deaths and 1.5 million displaced citizens. If despite this Indian parents chose to send their children to study in that country, there must be a real desperation. That Ukraine is the third most popular destination after China and the Philippines for these students pursuing medicine, further speaks of the sorry state of affairs at home. For the 16 lakh or so MBBS aspirants in the country, just 1,18,000 seats are available in various medical colleges. Indeed, the acceptance rate at Harvard Medical School is much higher than that at India’s top medical colleges like Vellore's Christian Medical College or the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Ukraine is not a haven of medical facilities. The country’s life expectancy of 71.8 years is well below the EU average of 81.3 years and just ahead of India’s 69.6. While in Ukrainian law, healthcare is free for all, there is no real healthcare for all in practice. Average monthly salaries for medical practitioners in the country are low, with a doctor likely to earn well below the average salary in the country. Many aspiring doctors from the country have migrated abroad.

All that it offers Indian students is a chance at getting the medical education they want at fees lower than what private colleges in India charge. There’s also less of the crushing competition that throws so many medical aspirants in India off their goals, and better infrastructure than is offered by all but the best medical colleges in India. And since the MBBS degree from Ukraine is recognised by the World Health Council, Indian Medical Council, and elsewhere, it is hardly a surprise that 18,000 of them made their way to universities in that country.

For perspective, of the 76,548 international students enrolled in Ukraine's universities, 18,000 are from India, the others from countries like Morocco, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Nigeria.

So instead of blaming students and their parents, the only question a responsible government should be asking is what can be done in the immediate term to beef up its medical education infrastructure to absorb the large numbers of aspirants.

And until then, let the kids go. In fact, help them go wherever they can get reasonably good medical education. Most of them will come back to India and use their degrees to help other Indians.