MCI gears up to track fake medical teachers

New Delhi: In a move to expose the menace of fake faculty which several medical colleges arrange to pass the Medical Council of India (MCI) inspection and get an approval to run their college, the MCI is all set to launch biometric facility in both government and medical colleges to keep an eye on them. Significantly, the biometric facility will be made mandatory under the “minimum standards” required to open a medical college.

To ensure that the adequate number of teachers work in colleges, the MCI will have an access to monitor the attendance reports. Proposed in 2009, the biometric attendance system which got stuck in bureaucracy has finally been revived and will be launched soon by Union health minister J.P. Nadda. The move officials say is intended to expose fake faculty that is “arranged” by some medical colleges to seek MCI’s approval to run their college during the MCI inspections.

“The biometric based network will allow MCI to check on the faculty members that attend medical colleges. This will tighten the noose and ensure that adequate number of teachers attend colleges,” said a senior official in MCI.

The MCI has linked Aadhaar numbers of the faculties to their biometric details. The facility will be launched in a phased wise manner and to start with about a hundred colleges have been chosen where the facility will be started soon.

Significantly, the government is also planning to notify the new system under the minimum standards required to open a new medical college. “The gazette notification will be out soon making sure that the medical colleges have the system in place before seeking permission to open a new medical college or seeking permission for enh-ancing seats in the college,” added the official.

The idea was conceptualised in 2009 with an aim to control ghost faculty. However, it was dropped as it was considered to be not very “feasible”. The MCI is all set to revive the project on centralised faculty identification and tracking for all medical colleges in the country. The project aims at maintaining a database of faculty and the time spent on taking classes. All medical colleges, including the private ones, have been informed about the scheme. “We used to receive complaints about the colleges that they did not have the stipulated number of faculty, but would arrange teachers during inspections. The new system will end this practice,” added another official.