No longer sinking its teeth into education

Despite 25 dental colleges coming up in the state in 10 years, seats have no takers

Dental problems are on a tremendous rise globally. Oral cancer is steadily emerging as one of the biggest health concerns.

And, dentistry as a subject has recently emerged as one of the most sought after specialisations in the medical field.

Yet, this year, about 160 seats in the three government dental colleges (GDC) at Mumbai, Nagpur and Aurangabad could not be filled up.

The fact that in the last 10 years more than 25 private dental colleges have sprung up in the state and four more are being established this year is highly indicative that dentistry is in demand. Then why did the seats go vacant?

According to a government source, students fighting for the seats failed to comprehend the complicated technicalities involved in getting into the government colleges.

“Hence, most of them are opting for private colleges,” said the source. Like most other state-run medical institutions, even  dental colleges are plagued by lack of basic amenities and depleting number of professors.

Interestingly, these colleges are not short of funds. “At any given point each of these three colleges has at least a crore of rupees at its disposal,” said Dr Vinay Hazare, Dean of GDC, Nagpur.

“Also, the government keeps providing us with grants frequently,” he added.

Prime factors behind the poor state of dental education in the state can be attributed to temporary faculty and stagnant designations.

For instance, GDC, Mumbai, has 42 lecturers but only one of them is a permanent employee.

Many lecturers are teaching in these colleges for the same salary and position for the last 8-10 years. Even the acting deans of GDC, Mumbai and Aurangabad, have been waiting for more than 6 years to get promoted to the post of dean.

Mumbai GDC dean Dr Suresh Mishra agreed that his college has not seen a promotion for the last three years or more.

Many departments in the college having been functioning without a head for years now. “We are functioning with 50 per cent of the staff and but our responsibilities are that same and that obviously leave our doctors stressed,” said Mishra.

In addition, the diminishing post-graduate seats in these colleges pose a huge threat to the quality of dental education in the state.

Even five years back, there were 40-50 PG seats in these colleges. Given the crunch of quality professors to mentor PG students, the Dental Council of India is cutting down on the seats.

“PG seats going down to only around six per college means we will have less of expertise,” said Dr Suresh Barpande, acting dean of GDC, Aurangabad.

Hence, doctors studying at these government colleges wait for three years to get a degree and leave the college.

“We cannot be working for a meagre Rs20,000 in government hospitals when we are being offered double this salary outside,” said Dr Akash Akinwar, one of the doctors.

All the deans agreed that retaining students after their degree is getting tougher with every passing day.