Cabinet clears law to modify private medical, dental colleges
The cabinet approved in principle the draft of a law to bring the private medical institutes under a legal framework instead of guidelines in its regular weekly meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
“The cabinet today gave nod in principle to the Private Medical and Dental College Act, 2020 to perform the private medical institutes in an effective manner”, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told a news briefing after the meeting.
The premier attended the meeting from her official Ganabhaban residence while her cabinet colleagues got linked from the cabinet division of the Bangladesh Secretariat here through a video conference.
Anwarul added that the law was mainly proposed to displace two existing rules, the Private Medical College Establishment and Operation Guidelines 2011 and Private Dental College Establishment and Operation Guidelines 2009, under that your private medical institutes are running.
“…. Now it can’t be possible to run the private medical institutes properly beneath the guidelines. A law is essential to modify the institutes in a proper manner,” he said.
In accordance with the proposed law, a private medical college will need to have minimum 50 students while the ratio of teacher-student will be 1:10 and 75 percent teachers should be appointed permanently, he continued.
The Cabinet Secretary also said the institutes have appointed 25 percent part-time teachers.
The medical colleges will be affiliated to the divisional medical universities concerned, he said.
He said that as the proposed law an institute should have at least undisputed three acres of land while minimum two acres of land in the metropolitan area.
Replying to a query, he said, Bangladesh has 70 private medical colleges and 26 private dental colleges as the number of public medical colleges is 36 and public dental is one.
The cabinet secretary said the cabinet also endorsed a proposal for extension of the National Service Programme into Phase-VIII.
