ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s medical regulator has ruled that graduates of medical and dental colleges in neighboring Afghanistan will no longer be eligible to sit the country’s mandatory licensing examination, a decision likely to affect hundreds of Pakistani students pursuing medical degrees across the border.
The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PM&DC) said in a notification issued on July 31 that only Pakistani nationals graduating from foreign medical institutions recognized by the US-based Education Commission on Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) would be eligible to take the National Registration Examination (NRE), the licensing test required to practice medicine in Pakistan.
The council said medical and dental institutions in Afghanistan are not listed under the ECFMG framework and therefore do not qualify for recognition by the PM&DC. It advised Pakistani students enrolled in Afghan institutions to make “informed academic decisions,” adding that no exemptions or relaxations would be granted.
“There is a decision that you should enroll only in those colleges that are listed on the ECFMG website, and Afghanistan isn’t even showing up on the ECFMG website,” PM&DC Registrar Rehan Naqvi told Arab News on Monday.
The decision is expected to affect Pakistani students studying medicine in Afghanistan, many of them from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where families have traditionally sent students across the border because of lower tuition costs, geographic proximity and limited seats in Pakistani medical colleges.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry says about 1,300 Pakistani students are currently studying in Afghanistan across various academic disciplines.
However, Ihsanul Wadood, a Pakistani medical student at Spinghar Medical University in Kabul and president of the Pakhtunkhwa Students Welfare Society in Kabul, disputed that figure, saying more than 6,000 Pakistani students are enrolled in Afghan medical colleges alone and that about 4,000 have already graduated.
He said the latest PM&DC notification had created uncertainty for thousands of students and graduates.
Wadood said affected students had previously secured relief from the Peshawar High Court before the PM&DC challenged the ruling in the Federal Constitutional Court, where the matter remains pending.
“Despite the matter currently being sub judice before the Federal Constitutional Court, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council has issued yet another notification that has severely impacted foreign medical and dental graduates, particularly those pursuing their studies in Afghanistan,” he said.
He argued the regulator was applying the policy retrospectively to students who had enrolled under an earlier regulatory framework.
“Such retrospective application is contrary to the well-established principle of fairness in policymaking, whereby new regulations are ordinarily implemented prospectively unless there is a compelling legal justification,” he said.
“Issuing and enforcing a new notification on the same subject while judicial proceedings are ongoing raises serious concerns regarding fairness, legal certainty, and the legitimate expectations of the affected students,” he added.
