Around 1,000 Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) seats are still vacant this year in India. Out of 6,511 seats, 5,549 seats have been filled and the reasons behind vacant seats could be Covid-19 or lack of interests of students in post graduate courses due to lack of jobs.
“Students are not opting post graduation because no jobs are available for doctors in government as well as in the private sector. They have the only option to start their own practice which is quite expensive,” says Dr Anil Chandna, member of Dental Council of India.
He further highlighted that the doctors were not opting for non-clinical branches, both in medical and dental. ”After a few years we won’t have teachers of subjects like oral medicine, public health dentistry, oral pathology, medical anatomy, physiology, pathology, social and preventive medicine, etc. The solution is at the end of counselling, NEET qualified students should be given a chance at management level to fill the seat of their own and inform DGHS of the respective state. Then private management should put extra effort to fill the seats. But that too only for nonclinical branches which go vacant,” he adds. In India there are 313 dental colleges out of which nearly 250 dental colleges are in private hands at UG level. About 27,000 dental students pass in the country every year.
