Concerned at the bleak job opportunities for the dentists in the country, the Dental Council of India (DCI) is mulling a proposal to downsize the number of seats for the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) courses from the existing 100 to 50 in a college.
If approved by the Health Ministry, a new college will have only 50 BDS seats. The move aims to ensure quality infrastructure to the colleges as presently around 30 to 40 per cent of the total seats in the dental colleges in the private sector have remained vacant for quite sometime.
Also, the step intends to restrict the admission for the students as there are not enough job opportunities for them once they complete the BDS course.
“This is yet another stringent move to curb the mushrooming of the colleges and ensure that we do not keep on admitting the students but cannot provide them enough jobs. We can’t keep them in dark.
“Moreover, we want that only those business houses or organisations come forward for setting the dental colleges who are serious in providing the quality education to the students in the sector,” DCI president D Majumdar said.
Lack of awareness about oral health besides dentists’ preference to practice in the metropolis is being attributed to acute shortage of job opportunities in the sector.
About 25,000 undergraduate and 3,500 post-graduate dental students are passing out every year from the dental colleges only to find that there are not attractive jobs available to them. Majumdar said he has already written to the Chief Ministers of all States to be stringent while giving approval to the new dental college in the private sector.
“We have more than sufficient number of dental colleges in the country and do not need more, when the dentists are not getting enough employment opportunities,” Majumdar said in his letter.
Highlighting the gloomy situation on the job front, DCI general secretary SK Ojha said many dentists are either without job or just earning a measly sum of as little as Rs 3,000 per month when compared to the MBBS doctors who were getting handsome pay packets.
Currently, there are 297 dental colleges in the country comprising 42 in the Government and 255 in the private sector.
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