Girls outnumber boys at seven medical colleges in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: Women have outnumbered men in as many as eight medical colleges in the state, closing the gender inequality gap for MBBS studies. This is double than last year when girls outshone boys in four undergraduate medical colleges in Gujarat.

The eight colleges are NHL Municipal Medical College, Ahmedabad (146 girls, 104 boys), Surat Municipal Corporation College (123 girls, 77 boys), LG Medical College (101 girls, 99 boys), Pramukhswami Medical College, Karamsad (78 girls, 72 boys), M K Shah Medical College (82 girls, 68 boys), Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute (79 girls, 71 boys), Nutan Medical College and Research Centre, Visnagar (81 girls, 66 boys) and Dr N D Desai Faculty of Medical Science and Research, Nadiad (85 girls, 65 boys).To secure admission in medical colleges, a candidate is to clear National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (UG), the entrance test for undergraduate medical and dental courses. The candidate should also have secured 50% marks in Class XII board exam.
In all, there are 28 medical colleges in the state. For 2019-20, a total of 2,386 women candidates secured admissions as compared to 2,794 men. A sharp decline in the number of takers for engineering courses and the increase in girl child education are cited to be among the reasons for this change. “More families are opting for single child and the focus on girl child education is on a sharp rise,” said Nikin Vora, dean, Sola Medical College. In the case of dental colleges, there is already a trend where girls outnumber boys. The ratio of girls to boys will be about 80:20 presently, said sources.
The overall trend in engineering colleges shows a sharp dip in interest. For the 2019-20 academic year 28,052 boys and 5,651 girls secured admissions in engineering colleges of Gujarat. This is a huge decline as compared to 35,999 boys and 7,023 girls in 2018-19.
For class XII (A group), there is a decline of about 16,000 students who appeared in 2019-2020 as compared to 2017-18 figures. In B-group meanwhile the drop in the number of students appearing in 2019-20 is only about 1,000 as compared to 2017-18.