Give degrees to failed SC-STs: Med varsity

The Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University in Lucknow has urged the Medical Council of India that graduation degrees be granted to SC and ST medical students, who have repeatedly failed to clear the final exams. A few of them have been trying since 1996. Gaurav Saigal reports.

The Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University in Lucknow has urged the Medical Council of India that graduation degrees be granted to SC and ST medical students, who have repeatedly failed to clear the final exams. A few of them have been trying since 1996.

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Earlier, about 50 reserved category students blamed the university’s teachers, alleging that they were deliberately giving SC-ST students poor marks.

The move comes only a few months before the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh where scheduled castes and scheduled tribes constitute 18% of the electorate.

On Monday, a letter from the vice-chancellor of the university — India’s first residential medical university, established in 1905 — Prof DK Gupta, to the MCI read: “As students have failed consecutively on several attempts, they be allowed to have a degree.”

He said a separate passing percentage should be fixed for students belonging to the reserved category, as they get selected with lower qualifying marks through medical entrance.

Although state medical education minister Lalji Verma said, “I will comment only after going through the documents”, Congress spokesperson Ram Kumar Bhargava said repeated failure of a section of students should be probed.

But Samajwadi Party leader Ambika Chaudhary said, “Once they (students from underprivileged sections) get an opportunity, they must be up to the mark to become doctors.”