Telangana: Bsc AHS Course Crumbling, Students Turn to YouTube for Preparation

Hyderabad:The BSc Allied Health Sciences (AHS) course, introduced in nine medical colleges in the state in February last year, shows gaps in its curriculum. First-year students were not provided with books, syllabi or academic calendars that students could refer to. As a result, only 27 of 860 students in the state passed the first-year exams.

Students, after protesting in their respective colleges, besieged the Kaloji Narayana University of Health Sciences on Tuesday, demanding clarification on results.

"We chose this course because it has a great demand. It is a popular course in many states and countries. However, at the outset, students and teachers have been unsure of the syllabus and coursework," said Sindhu, a BSc AHS student at Gandhi Medical College.

She told Deccan Chronicle that instead of assistant professors and HODs, they were taught by postgraduate students, who would come to class only for 15 minutes. "AHS is more practical work and we learn a lot at the hospital from senior doctors. But we were left on our own for theory papers. Moreover, we were given a broad guideline of the syllabus only one month before the internal exams. Hence, we resorted to YouTube videos and other publically available information to prepare for our exams," she said.

The course was introduced to fill the shortage of technicians in the medical system in fields like anaesthesiology, radiology, imaging, nursing and various others. The students spend hours in hospitals, assisting doctors in various departments. While the pass percentage for other courses is 40 per cent, the students in AHS have to score minimum 50per cent marks to pass.

Moreover, the students did not have access to any model question papers to refer to before exams. "Most students scored between 35 to 40 out of 80 in theory exam. They all would have passed if the qualifying percentage would have been 40 per cent like all other courses," said Sindhu.

After protests by students, the supplementary exams have now been scheduled for September. Only a few medical colleges have arranged for remedial classes. "The academic calendar, which was already for 13 months for our batch would now be stretched to 16 months due to the supplementary exams and we would have only six months for the second year," Sindhu said.

The second-year syllabus too, she says, is unclear. “All college principals were informed about the conditions six months after the course started, no action was taken then,” said Sindhu. Gandhi College principal has now assured to provide all facilities to students but the uncertainty over the syllabus and academic calendar remains.

"Only three per cent of students have passed. Many students in this course are from rural backgrounds," SFI state president T. Nagaraju.

"On Tuesday, students from all nine colleges protested in front of the KNRUHS. We wanted to meet the vice chancellor but were only allowed to meet the registrar. She said that she could not help with the syllabus as it was decided by the National Medical Council and would get back on results after two weeks," Nagaraju said. "We have also met the controller of examination but to no avail," he added.