Click to play videoMumbai: There has been a 25 per cent drop in the number of students who took the All India Pre-Medical Test this year, from over 2 lakh students last year.
The entrance for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences is a similar story. The number of students has dropped from 80,000 in 2006 to 65,000 in 2007.
This comes at a time when students taking the IIT-Joint Entrance Exam have jumped by one lakh this year. That's not all, those taking the All Indian Engineering Entrance Exam, has also increased from 6.5 lakh in 2007 to a little over 8 lakhs this year.
“If I'm going to spend so much time preparing and ensuring that I become a doctor, all that I get at the age of 27–28 is fifty thousand bucks,” pointed out Director of T.I.M.E. Coaching Class, Arkss Srinivas. “Whereas, if I'm an engineer and then do an MBA, I start getting a lakh or a lakh and a half per month.
“I think it's clearly aspirations which have changed. That's the trend we're looking at. It is disturbing because India requires a lot more doctors than engineers,” he said.
Experts, however, say that this is not a cause for concern but may just be a part of a cycle.
For instance, many students were opting for engineering till the IT bust in 2000. Then, aspirants for engineering dropped while the number of students opting for medicine increased. With the economy doing well, more students are again opting for engineering and management.
In a country like India, with a doctor to population ratio of 60 per lakh, a drop in the number of students opting for medicine is definitely not good news.
With hype surrounding salaries of IIT and IIM graduates, perhaps it is time that doctors were given their due credit.
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