Cheap Chinese medical degrees may no longer be an easy option for Indian students

New Delhi: Indian students looking to secure cheap Chinese medical degrees will no longer trip over the language question.

The Chinese Ministry of Education has restricted domestic universities from drawing foreign students with promises of “bilingual” curriculums. It has issued a list of 45 universities that teach medicine in English, while directing all other colleges to only offer lessons in Chinese.

China hosted more than 23,000 Indian students at its universities last year, according to its Ministry of Education, a large number of whom, around 7,000, were enrolled to study medicine.

Medical education in China is known to be much cheaper than in India — some courses cost as less as a tenth of those at Indian private colleges — but the 45 universities that offer MBBS in English only have an annual quota of close to 3,400 seats, according to the Medical Council of India.

The remaining aspirants so far found an alternative in 214 bilingual universities that claimed to offer lessons in both English and Chinese.

However, field experts told ThePrint that a lot of foreign students got taken for a ride as they arrived in China to discover that the colleges didn’t offer English lessons at all, or taught disciplines such as Chinese traditional medicine, instead of conventional medicine.

The China government order, issued ahead of the 2019-20 admission season, is likely meant to curb these violations.

“Schools not listed (in the list of 45 universities) shall not recruit undergraduate students majoring in clinical medicine (in English) to come to China, but only undergraduate students majoring in clinical medicine taught in Chinese,” China’s Ministry of Education statement reads.

“’Bilingual Teaching’ mode to recruit foreign students in MBBS is strictly prohibited,” it adds.

A total of 4.92 lakh international students from 196 countries and regions studied in China in 2018, the Ministry of Education had said recently. Roughly 60 per cent of these were from Asia, including India, Thailand, South Korea and Pakistan. India is the fourth-largest contributor of foreign students to China, with 23,198 going in 2018-19 alone.

An official at the Chinese embassy in Delhi said that after the new order, it will make sure students are not fooled into taking admissions in such “bilingual” universities.

Drawn to China

Professor Srikanth Kondapalli, a China expert who serves as faculty member at the Centre for East Asian Studies in JNU’s School of International Studies, said studying medicine in China had become a trend since the 2000s after it became difficult to get an MBBS degree in India because of the rising cost of medical education in private colleges and the limited number of seats in government colleges [approximately 31,000 are on offer each year].

“The fad primarily took off in the 2000s, mostly with parents down south,” he added. “When you go to Hyderabad, you will see giant posters offering to send your kids to China for an MBBS. People just want to send their children for an MBBS degree, at any cost.”

According to education consultants, besides the cost factor, students are also drawn to China because it offers good job and internship opportunities, and its colleges are easier to get into.

“Students go to China to study cheap MBBS and it has been a popular destination with Indians for a long time,” said Maidul Sheikh, a consultant with Edurizon, a Delhi-based consultancy. “It’s a destination which is also tried and tested.”

The bilingual universities, he said, were even cheaper than the English ones.

“For example, if you go to an English university, it should cost you Rs 15 lakh to 20 lakh for the whole course, but a bilingual university can offer that course for even less than Rs 10 lakh,” he added.

“Though most education consultants advise students to go to English universities, some sought admission in bilingual universities, only to get taken for a ride,” he said.

“Only a few bilingual universities offer courses in both English and Chinese,” Sheikh added.

According to him, students who enrolled in these bilingual colleges often ended up taking lessons in the Chinese language in their first year in the country, to be able to complete the course.

In order to study medicine in China, one needs a National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) score of 200-plus, whereas any decent government medical college in India would require more than 550.

Over 10 lakh students apply for NEET each year, with roughly half qualifying.

“On average, only one of every 3,000 students who clear NEET gets a seat in a government medical college, while the rest have two options: Enrol in private schools where the fees can range up to Rs 1 crore, or go abroad,” said Birendra Singh, a counsellor at Mumbai-based Moksha Consultancy that sends students abroad for MBBS.

“Most Indian students go to Ukraine, China, Russia and Kyrgyzstan to study medicine because its cheaper there. Out of all these countries, China is the best option,” he added.

“For enrolling in a decent university in China, one needs to pay a maximum of Rs 20 lakh, which is far cheaper than what they would get in India,” he added.

‘Not much of an impact’

Professor Kondapalli told ThePrint that the new China order is unlikely to have a massive impact on student outflow to the country.

“The order to restrict MBBS teaching to only 45 institutions is a way of standardising the curriculum, which is a good step,” he said.

“So far, students went to China, first studied Chinese language and then studied medicine, which was very difficult for them,” he added. “Chinese is a very difficult language and learning medicine in Chinese is even more tough.”

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