A year since Russia-Ukraine war, fate of thousands of Indian medical aspirants still hangs in balance

Ever since the attack, at least 22,000 students, including 18,000 medical students, had to return to India, said members of PAUMS.

R B Gupta, the president of PAUMS, said, “Around 2,500-3,000 students managed to complete their courses before returning and around 3,000 students, mostly third year and final year students, returned to the universities situated in places of Ukraine that aren’t much affected by the war. Some of the students also shifted to Poland, Serbia, Russia, Georgia and other nearby countries where the universities have accommodated them after charging some money.” Gupta’s son, who was then in third year, shifted to a Serbian University.

Gupta added that over 3,000 students, who were in the first semester and had to return just three months after their admission in Ukraine, had appeared in the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam in India once again and over 1,000 students had managed to clear it and got admission in BDS and BAMS courses.

Ashish Kumar Sodhi of Punjab’s Nawanshahr district said he has been a student of the Kyiv Medical University in Ukraine since November 2021 and had returned on March 5, 2022. “Now I am taking online classes which I can afford just for the first 3-4 semesters as after that, practical work will start and then one has to return either to Ukraine or to some other nearby country to complete the degree.”

Sodhi added that since there is no telling when the war will come to an end, he will wait for another two-three months and then quit the course and pursue some other course in India or go to some other country. Some of Sodhi’s friends have left for Canada and joined non-medical courses.

Most students like Sodhi, who are taking online classes, are worried about their fate as an MBBS course without clinical practical experience is unimaginable.

Shivam Shukla, a third semester student from Solan in Himachal Pradesh told The Indian Express that studying medicine online is not a good idea but they are helpless and waiting for the situation to become normal and then return to Ukraine.

He said that several students have applied to their respective universities which have tie ups in other countries to shift their courses out of Ukraine. However, preference is being given to third and final-year students only whose practical work is getting affected.

Gupta said, “We have filed a case in the Supreme Court of India but the Indian government is yet to provide any relief because it will be bound to adjust all Indian students in the future if anything like this happens in any other country.” Notably, all the students who returned from Ukraine and their parents protested, sat on hunger strikes and launched signature campaigns but nothing has happened till date.

According to the protestors, the government could have accommodated students in the new colleges since the country lacks doctors. According to the Ministry of Education and Science in Ukraine, there were over 18,095 students from India in Ukraine, mostly medical students, when the war broke out.

Here’s why students prefer Ukraine for MBBS

The MBBS degree in Ukraine is recognised all over the world, including by the Indian Medical Council, World Health Council, in Europe and in the UK. It is less expensive too. In India, a student needs Rs 10 to 12 lakh each year for a four-and-half-year course at a private college and ends up spending Rs 50 lakh to complete the course. In government colleges, the fee is around Rs 2 lakh per annum but not every student can manage a seat in the government colleges.

In Ukraine, the annual fee for an MBBS course is Rs 4-5 lakh (in Indian currency) which is around two and half times less as compared to the fees in private medical colleges in Punjab.

The NEET exam is conducted for admission to undergraduate medical courses in government and private colleges and it is also mandatory for students who wish to pursue the same courses abroad. However, the number of students who appear for the NEET exam is much higher than the seats available at the colleges in India and those who could not get a seat here, had opted for the Ukrainian universities.