Cabinet okays bill to bring private medical, dental colleges under law

The cabinet has approved, in principle, 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 at the weekly cabinet meeting on Monday, held virtually with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in chair.

The prime minister joined the meeting through videoconference from her official residence Ganabhaban, while other cabinet members remained connected from the secretariat.

“At present, private medical and dental colleges are run under two guidelines... it is not possible to run the institutes properly by guidelines only. A law is needed to regulate these institutes. That is why the Medical Education and Family Welfare Division framed the bill," Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam said at the post-meeting press briefing.

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% teachers will have to be permanent,” the cabinet secretary said, adding the number of part-time teachers cannot exceed 25% of the total pool of teachers.

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

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

There are some 70 private medical colleges and 26 private dental colleges across Bangladesh.

The number of government medical colleges is 36, while there is only one government dental college, the cabinet secretary said.