With a view to tackle the shortage of educators in the field of medicine, the Union Health Ministry has approved a proposal from the Medical Council of India (MCI) to raise the retirement age of medical teachers from 65 years to 70 years.

However, the government is yet to take a call on the proposal to increase the retirement age of medical practitioners from 65 to 70. The ministry, which got the proposal from the MCI a while ago, has recently decided to approve the proposal for raising the retirement age of medical teachers in view of the continuing shortage of able hands in the education sector.

The MCI had forwarded a number of proposals including enhancing the age of teachers in the medical field as part of its three-tier approach to meet the crisis of manpower shortage. MCI had also suggested outsourcing teachers from the private sector and employee retired teachers. With a number of new colleges coming up, the sector was feeling pressure of shortage acutely, sources said.

MCI also suggested conducting distance education programme in which experts of one place would be engaged with a few medical institutes to deliver lecture. Thus even without being a full-time teacher, the experts can impart knowledge.

In another recommendation, the MCI had explained to that government that the enhancement of retirement age of government medical professionals would help in producing more MBBS doctors and prevent private medical colleges from poaching on experienced and talented teachers.

The agency also recommended that the that the land requirement for setting up a new medical college should be reduced to 10 acres instead of the present 20 acres in urban areas, but within a 5-km radius. In difficult areas like hilly areas, tribal areas and the North East region, the land can be taken up at two places within a 10-km radius for setting up a hospital and medical colleges so that students are able to visit the patients in the hospital.

The government had earlier relaxed the land norms from 25 acres to 20 acres with permission to take land in two pieces in difficult areas and densely populated cities about a year ago due to non-availability of large chunks of land. Similarly, the retirement age of Central government doctors was also increased to 65 years from 60 years. The Government medical colleges had also been allowed to increase the number of under-graduate seats but without compromising on the quality of education. The MCI too, has recommended reducing the student bed ratio from 1:8 to 1:5, meaning that a 1,500-bedded hospital could have 250 undergraduate students.