Over the last few days, Indian social media has been flooded with accounts and images of young Indian students stranded in Ukraine, hiding out in bunkers and making desperate pleas for an evacuation from what is swiftly become a war-torn country, thanks to Russia's ongoing military action.
Among these, a good number of students happen to be pursuing medicine in the Eastern European country. Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a webinar on the allocations for the health sector in the Union Budget said, "Our children today are going to small countries for study, especially in medical education. Language is a problem there. They are still going..." He went on to ask if the private sector couldn't capture this market in "a big way", and if the state governments couldn't frame good policies for land allotment, according to a report by PTI.
A good number of the students currently stranded are pursuing medicine in Kharkiv and Kyiv. Why then has Ukraine emerged as a lucrative option for Indian medical aspirants and what are the factors driving them there?
For starters, a medical degree in Ukraine takes the bite of competition out of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test. All one has to do is qualify NEET to gain admission to a Ukrainian medical college. The cutthroat strife for the highest rank is all but eliminated.
Then there's also the fact that medical education in Ukraine comes significantly cheaper than one in a private medical college in India. If a student lands a rank good enough to get a seat in a government college in India, they'll be charged around 2 lakh per annum to complete the four-year course, whereas private colleges can charge anywhere beyond four times that number.
And once the MBBS degree is gained, students will have to battle it out again with the NEET PG exam for an MD, fees for which can be even higher.
On the other hand, according to The MDHouse, (who are they?) which has been partnering with a premier state university for medicine in Ukraine for India, to gain an MBBS+MD qualification in Ukraine over six years would cost students just about 16 lakh rupees in fees.
Apart from being light on the pocket, universities in Ukraine are also bestowed with good infrastructure to teach medicine. Add to that the fact that medical degrees earned in Ukraine are well recognised worldwide, including the World Health Organisation, it isn't hard to understand why there are almost 18 thousand Indian students currently pursuing their MBBS in Ukraine.
Tapping into the opportunity there are education consultancy firms that present students with lucrative offers and build partnerships with universities in Ukraine to make it a viable option for the students.
