Miscellaneous
Govt launches probe into MBBS entrance results
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has begun investigation into the publication of wrong MBBS entrance results by the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) last week.The Ministry of Health (MoH) has begun investigation into the publication of wrong MBBS entrance results by the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) last week.
A committee formed under Dr Bhola Shrestha, chief of Curative Service Division, visited the academy on Sunday and seized computers, answer sheets and other documents for further verification.
Last week, while making an announcement of the entrance examination results, the PAHS accidentally published identification codes of students claiming that they had passed the entrance but a subsequent review found that the list was wrong. The students whose named appeared on the first list were actually those who had flunked the entrance examination.
Dr Shrestha said their initial investigation suggested that a major problem had occurred while decoding the answer sheets. This had led to the publication of ID numbers of students who failed the entrance while even the names of some of the absentees had been published by mistake.
The PAHS figured out the mistake on Thursday evening as they were reviewing Wednesday’s results to conduct a practical examination before publishing the final list of the students eligible to apply for the MBBS programme. Dean of the PAHS Dr Shreejana Shrestha said while preparing to conduct the practical entrance examination they found that ID numbers of the persons who did not appear in the entrance were published.
“We immediately accepted our mistake and reached out to Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, District Administration Office and other concerned stakeholders,” she said. “We then reviewed the process and published the real list of passed students.”
The new list, published by the PAHS on Friday, contains the names of only 290 people as succesful candidates as opposed to 380 names that had appeared on the first list.
“It’s very unfortunate that a mistake was committed. But it was not intentional and we will be more careful in the future,” the PAHS dean said.
The government probe team also includes Health Ministry officials Ram Krishna Lamichane, Shambu Regmi and Krishna Prasad Subedi. “We will consult with IT experts and submit the report to the ministry soon,” said probe committee chair
Dr Shrestha.
The publication of the new list sparked a protest outside the PAHS and the Health Ministry, with students claiming that there has been anomaly in the entrance process. Students chanted slogans against officials on Sunday morning outside the Patan Hospital.