More than half of the student doctors have failed in the licensing examinations administered by the Nepal Medical Council.

Altogether 510 student doctors had taken the licensing examination conducted at Sano Bharyang, Swoyambhu in the capital on Saturday and only 252 of them passed the exam.

Four hundred and sixty-nine candidates took the licensing exam in the physicians' stream and 246 have passed while only six out of 41 who sat the exam under the dentist category made it through, according to the Nepal Medical Council (NMC).

According to NMC registrar Dr Dilip Sharma, the number of failed students has increased as the students do not study hard these days. "May be, they think that they will pass the exam next time around and this might be the reason for the more failures," he added.