Fast-track seats for sale - conditions apply

The attraction of making a doctor or dentist out of one's child seems to be on the wane for quite a few years now. Dentistry as a profession is not financially attractive any more - the topic for a later post. Yet, 300+ dental colleges (of which 40 are government-run), with an inventory of around 25,000 undergraduate (BDS) seats and over 4,000 postgraduate (MDS) seats, need to find gullible folks who are willing to contribute to the college owners' profits, year after year.

So colleges perforce need to offer some freebies as their USP, to attract students. One freebie, of course, is to promise that students would not fail. Another USP offered by some colleges is to allow students - and especially postgraduate students - not to attend college regularly. Their names are enrolled with the University and the Council, but some attend college for a few days a month, others only for a few days in a year.

These seats command a much higher price. And the Chairman laughs all the way to the bank, because an absent student who pays more means double profits for him - more money received, as well as more indirect savings, because the student is just not there to use the college's resources. In effect, the visiting student.

Despite their best efforts to retain them, colleges, however, do lose students midway through the course. Realization dawns on some folks a little late in the day, that the profession of dentistry is not for them. So, having paid their fees partly and wasted some months or even a year or two, these students simply stop coming. As a result, the college stands to lose the uncollected fee for the rest of the years, but cannot, according to rules, admit someone in the middle of the course, say for example, in third year. In fact, there are often not enough students applying, to fill up the available number of seats. And empty seats mean losses.

But there are those who firmly believe in the Indian systems of jugaad (innovative quick fix) and full paisa vasool (bang for the buck). And the Chairmen of dental colleges indulge in the cutting edge of jugaad and paisa vasooli. So those empty seats suddenly get filled a year down the line. How does that happen?

The Council and the universities receive a list of students admitted to their affiliated colleges every year within the cut-off date. The Council of course, never opens up that list to check whether the same people qualified some years later. The universities do, though. And here is where a setting is necessary between the college and the university. Clerical staff in the universities are more than happy to change or add students' names to the original list, in exchange for a few thoBDS in 3 years instead of 4, or an MDS student to get his degree in even one year.

College managements make a commitment that any student will pass the university examinations.Whatever year they might join the course. But fast-tracking the course and saving a year or two of one's life costs money - and students are only happy to pay up!