Cabinet okays bill to bring pvt medical institutes under law

The Cabinet on Monday in principle approved the draft of "Private Medical and Dental College Bill, 2020" in order to bring the private medical institutions under a law instead of two separate guidelines.

The approval came from the weekly Cabinet meeting held virtually with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in thec.

The PM joined the meeting through a videoconference from her official residence Ganobhaban, while other cabinet members remained connected from the Secretariat.

"At present, private medical colleges and private dental colleges are run under two guidelines…. Now it's not possible to run the institutes properly by only guidelines. A law is needed to regulate these. So, the Medical Education and Family Welfare Division framed the bill," said Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam at a press briefing after the meeting.

The private institutes are now run under the Private Medical College Establishment and Operation Guidelines 2011 and Private Dental College Establishment and Operation Guidelines 2009, he mentioned.

"As per the bill, a college will have to have at least 50 students, its teacher-student ratio will have to be 1:10 and 75 percent teachers will have to be permanent," said the Cabinet Secretary adding the number of part-time teachers can't be exceed 25 percent of the teachers.

The colleges will be affiliated to the divisional medical universities concerned, he said.

A college needs to have at least undisputed three acres of land, while minimum two acres of land inside the metropolitan area.

There are some 70 private medical colleges and 26 private dental colleges in the country.

The number of government medical colleges is 36, while that of government dental college is one, said the Cabinet Secretary.