1,097 apply for 11 dental posts, 50% fail entry test

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, February 16

In an indicator of the dearth of jobs for dentists and failing standards, 1,097 BDS and MDS students applied for 11 posts of medical officers (dental) in Punjab’s Health and Family Welfare Department. And, over 50 per cent of them failed to even score the minimum passing marks (35 per cent) in the written test.

Conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences last week, aspirants had to score a minimum of 29.75 marks out of 85. 

The maximum a General Category candidate scored was 63. In SC, BC, ex-servicemen (ESM) and physically handicapped categories, the maximum scores were 57, 53, 47 and 31, respectively.

For the 11 posts, six will be shortlisted for Ludhiana, three for Jalandhar and two for Amritsar. The department has selected 32 candidates, including 24 women, for the interview, almost thrice the number of vacancies. In SC, BC, ESM and physically handicapped categories, all those shortlisted are women.

“The dentists’ poor performance exposes the deteriorating quality of education in many dental colleges,” said university Vice-Chancellor Dr Raj Bahadur.

While 1,700 BDS and MDS students pass out of 16 dental colleges in the state every year, vacancies in the health department have been advertised after a long time.

‘Offers’ by colleges 

• In a bid to fill seats, many colleges have come up with attractive offers, including slashing the tuition fee, to woo students

• As over 300 BDS seats were declared vacant in the final round of counselling in last academic session, some colleges hired commission agents to convince students

• One such college even offered “failure immunity” — a “guarantee” that you won’t flunk exams — to attract students