New Grade System for medicos?

CHENNAI: As medical students across the State are gearing up for a larger protest than what the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University saw last week, university sources revealed that it may adopt a new system of gradation to ensure a higher pass percentage for first year medicos. According to a highly placed source, the university is planning to adopt a gradation system that is followed by Kerala University of Health Sciences, which could alter the results drastically, as the pass percentage could go up to as high as 90 percent, the source said.  The Kerala varsity has been practicing the system under the auspices of the Medical Council of India (MCI), the source added. The difference is simple: most students in Tamil Nadu (40 per cent) failed in their exams because they were unable to get 50 per cent in all subjects individually, and they were counting on the MCI’s ‘50 percent aggregate rule’ that tallies practicals, viva and internals to take them across the line (250/300). However, most of them have good  results when it comes to internals, practicals and viva, all of which are graded within the colleges.According to the system that is followed by the medical varsity in Kerala, the students’ marks will be tallied as 50 for each of the two theory papers per subject (as opposed to 100 each), 20 for the viva (as opposed to 100), 40 for the internals and practicals each (instead of 200 in total). This amounts to a total of 200 marks, of which a student requires only 100 to pass the course, from all components, the source said. Officials of the university are apparently  confident that this gradation system will help solve the ongoing tiff between the students and the varsity. Results are expected to be announced soon.