‘National issue,’ says Nitish Kumar on students going to Ukraine from India

Till Tuesday, about 90 students from Bihar have flown back from Ukraine while around 600 are still stuck in the war-torn country, as per official reports

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said the large number of students going to Ukraine from Bihar and other states across India needed introspection at the national level so that those aspiring for medical studies did not go abroad and opted to study in the country.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday cited social media as a reason behind the higher awareness of people to send their wards abroad to persue higher education. (HT PHOTO.)

The chief minister stressed that he got to know of the large number of students even from non-affluent households going to Ukraine only recently, referring to the frantic calls from students stuck in Ukraine amid a Russian invasion.

“Before the Ukraine crisis, I was completely unaware that so many children from our state and even other states which are much more developed than ours have gone to Ukraine for medical studies,” the CM said in the Bihar assembly.

He made the statement during health minister Mangal Pandey’s reply on a call attention motion brought in by Sanjeev Kumar of the JD(U), seeking government response on the need for capping fees of medical studies in private medical colleges and increasing seats in government medical colleges.

“This is not a state issue as students from all across India are going to Ukraine. We all have to think at the national level so that students do not feel the need to go abroad for medical studies. We will look into it,” Kumar said, hinting that a broader national policy to increase seats for medical students and make medical education affordable especially in the private sector was imperative.

Till Tuesday, about 90 students have flown back from Ukraine while around 600 are still stuck in the war-torn country, as per official reports

The CM cited social media as a reason behind the higher awareness of people to send their wards abroad even as he recounted that earlier child of communist parties used to send their wards to Russia, a reference to the pre–Soviet Union disintegration when communist parties in India had strong tie up with USSR. “Earlier, Ukraine was part of Russia,” the CM said.

Significantly, health minister Mangal Pandey, in his reply, told the house that the state government had taken a slew of measures for better medical studies by increasing the number of government medical colleges and initiating opening of six medical colleges, which would come up in the next few years. “In Bihar, there are six medical colleges including AIIMS and ESIC, Bihta. Six new medical colleges are under construction. In coming years, the number of medical colleges in government sector would be 12,” he said.

On the need for capping the fees in private medical colleges, the minister said the fee structure of private medical colleges is determined by an independent committee headed by a retired justice and revised every three years. The fee structure, the minister said, is decided based on various parameters like infrastructure of the colleges, salary of teaching and non-teaching faculty, library facilities, laboratory, administrative costs etc.