Medical students studying in Chinese universities protest outside Kerala Secretariat.

Medical students from India who have enrolled in Chinese universities have protest outside Kerala Secretariat. Students are seeking recognition in physical training in India. The Foreign Medical Graduates Parents Association (FMGPA), an association of parents of medical students abroad, organized the protest under its banner.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, medical students were unable to return to China to complete the courses. Chinese authorities refused to provide visas to Indian students amid the current situation. So the students have asked to complete their courses online.

What Indian medical students studying in China are saying:

“We were forced to come back from China in January 2020. It’s been two years since we have been attending online classes.

We don’t have any recognition of whether the Indian government will accept us with these online classes.

Most of us are doing practical work at various government and private hospitals in Kerala but it is not recognised,” Murshid Aleen, a fourth-year medical student at Yangzhou University told ANI.

Worried about repaying their loans and completing their education, the students said they have communicated their problems to the Central government through an online portal – Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS).

“We are helpless right now. We need a certificate from the government that we are going to the hospitals for a certain period and we are getting an observation from a certain department,” Aleen said.

He further highlighted that China is presently facing another wave of Covid-19 and said that the situation there is becoming ‘more critical.’

Vice president of FMGPA, Subair MC, said that students want authorisation from the Kerala government and Indian government to get their certificates to deem their education as ‘valid.’ 

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“Students from China are facing the same difficulties as students from Ukraine. Please don’t forget us,” it read.

Last month, the Delhi High Court issued to the Centre and National Medical Council (NMC) on a plea moved by students seeking directions to NMC to allow physical training in India of Indian students studying medicine in China, who are stuck in their home country India, due to COVID-19 pandemic.

As many as 147 students of medicine at the Ningbo University (China) have filed a petition stating that they to India in early 2020 (January to March) and thereafter, have been stuck in their home country, India, ever since due to the non-availability of visas from the Chinese authorities.

(With inputs from ANI)