Tribune News Service
Faridkot, November 1
After it got less than 10 per cent of qualified students to fill about 5,030 nursing courses seats in 103 nursing colleges in the state despite two rounds of entrance tests, the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has now invited students from across the country to fill 4,570 vacant seats.
Most students going abroad
- The crisis is blamed on the increasing number of girl students going abroad after Class XII on study visas
- “It is a tough time for many institutes as they are not getting adequate number of students,” said Dr Raj Bahadur, VC, BFUHS
The university has not only waived the condition of qualifying the Punjab Para Medical Entrance Test (PPMET-2021) which was conducted two times on August 29 and October 24, even those who had not appeared in the tests have now been made eligible for admission on the basis of their marks in Class XII.
This ‘liberal’ approach, setting aside the entrance test and the qualifying marks in the PPMET, is aimed at saving 103 nursing colleges in the state as many of these colleges are on the verge of closure in the absence of students, said a senior functionary in the Department of Medical Education and Research.
In the entrance test conducted by the BFUHS on August 29, only 240 candidates qualified the test against the availability of 5,030 seats in BSc (Nursing). The test was conducted again on October 24 with a relatively easy question paper but this time, the number of qualified candidates could not cross 220. Now, for the admission on the vacant seats, the first priority would be given to students on the basis of their score in the PPMET, followed by students who did not appear in the test but belong to Punjab and lastly, to students who belong to any other state in the country.
It is not only the nursing course where the colleges are facing shortage of students, even in the post graduate nursing courses (MSc), there are only 35 candidates who took admission against the availability of about 520 seats in different nursing institutes in the state.
4,500 nursing seats go begging, Baba Farid University eases admission norms
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