Ambimama - India

Taking serious note of absenteeism among dental college professors, the Dental Council of India has decided to introduce biometric attendance system for the teachers by the end of February. This could well be a trendsetter for medical colleges which also face the problem of teachers not spending enough time in colleges.

We found that some professors are making flying visits to their college; some are on the rolls of four colleges. Some are so busy with private practice that they don’t even visit the college. With a number of dental colleges mushrooming, it has become necessary for us to monitor the quality of education, said DCI president Dr Anil Kohli. The council received complaints that due to staff shortage, dental colleges were making compromises on the mandatory conditions, including number of staff and teaching hours.

The database from the biometric system will help the authorities verify attendance apart from documentary proof. So far, the council had not taken action against erring doctors for want of proof. These machines will provide documentary evidence. They will be installed by us and maintained by the college, he said. At the diamond jubilee celebrations of the council inaugurated on Saturday by deputy chief minister M K Stalin, Kohli said the council along with the planning commission, WHO and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will undertake a study to assess the dental healthcare situation in the country, including statistics on number of private and government colleges, clinics, doctors and students. We will have the results by December 2010. We will make policy decisions based on it, he said. The commission will make it mandatory for dentists to attend at least 20 hours of continuous dental education programme.

Stalin said the state was making arrangements to ensure oral hygiene in rural areas by allotting funds to set up dental wards in taluk hospitals and primary health centres. At least 80% of kids and 60% of adults have some dental issues . Besides these, at least 30% of cancers are oral cancers.

Most dental students studying in self-financing colleges pay huge sums of money as tuition fees and cannot be forced to work in rural areas, said DCI president Dr Anil Kohli. They pay in lakhs and we cannot force them to work in rural areas where they may not be able to earn that kind of money. Rural health care, should be the responsibility of the government, he said. With only one government dental college in the state, there are just 100 dentists produced annually, compared to 1,250 who pass out of the private colleges. We have decided there would be no more self-financing colleges, he said.