NMMTA says no changes in elgibility of non medical teachers, trashes misleading reports

New Delhi: Post its one on one meeting with the Chairman of Board of Governors, Dr V K Paul and Secretary General Dr Sanjay Shrivastava of Medical Council of India on 10th December 2018, the National M.Sc Medical Teachers’ Association (NMMTA) has confirmed that there is no change in the eligibility of non-medical teachers.

The Association has also condemned the manner in which vested interests sought to create confusion and panic among the stakeholders including the teachers.

“One Rajasthan based body is engaged in malicious propaganda to deliberately mislead everyone and to harass the non-medical teachers. It recently peddled this fake news in the newspapers, which was later clarified. This unethical and immoral propaganda must be condemned,” stated the note from NMMTA written by its General Secretary, Mr Arjun Maitra.

In the Medical Council of India’s Teachers’ Eligibility and Qualification (TEQ) guidelines amended up to 2018, separate academic qualifications have been prescribed for both medical and non-medical teachers. The Schedule 1 of the TEQ document prescribes the qualifications for the teachers, where the Sl. No. 2 is exclusively on the non-medical teachers. This part has not been amended by the MCI and the qualifications of non-medical teachers remains unchanged, read the statement from NMMTA. 

Sharing his perspective on the issue with the BioVoice, Dr Sridhar Rao, President, NMMTA pointed out that earlier on 1st November 2018, the MCI had published an amendment to the Teachers Eligibility and Qualification guidelines for the sole purpose of including DNB as an additional qualification to teach in medical colleges. Explaining the reason for coming out with a statement, he said: “A body of non-clinical doctors from Rajasthan has deliberately misinterpreted the amendment and spread rumors. It even tricked some local newspapers to publish a fake story that MCI has removed medical M.Sc degree as a qualification for teaching posts. When the facts were presented to the newspapers, they published corrections. Unfortunately, this body is continuing to circulate misinformation in both official and unofficial circles.”

Statement by NMMTA further clarified that in order to include DNB as an additional qualification for the role of a medical teacher, MCI recently made an amendment to Schedule -1 under the serial number 4 and clause 6 and published in the Gazette  notification  No.  MCI-12(2)/2018-Med.Misc./142810  on November 1, 2018. Both these amendments are with respect to the medical teachers only and no amendments have been made regarding non-medical teachers under Sl. No.2.

As per NMMTA, for teaching faculty, the  MCI  considers only those degrees whose  courses are  included  in  the Schedule-I of the Indian Medical Council Act. “Both the MCI and the Additional Secretary at Ministry of  Health  and  Family Welfare  have confirmed that medical  M.Sc  courses are included in the Schedule-I, hence Medical  M.Sc  degree  is considered as an eligibility to teach in the non-clinical subjects.”