Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) is trying for Medical Council of India (MCI) permission to set up Regional Teacher Training Centres (RTTCs) at Vijayawada and Tirupati to enhance the quality of teaching on par with modern trends.
Announcing this in his maiden press conference here on Friday, Vice-Chancellor C. Venkateswara Rao said the RTTCs were essential to adopt the Competency-based Medical Education System (CBMES) which is likely to be cleared by the MCI next year. The emphasis of CBMES will be more on the competencies expected from medical graduates than on the conventional time-bound approach to examinations.
Foundation course
Besides, a foundation course is being introduced for newly-admitted students to improve their communications skills and behavioural patterns of the students.
Dr. Rao said the NTRUHS has recently created a research fund with an initial corpus of ₹50 lakh to support the research projects of students and teachers. For this purpose, workshops would be conducted by experts at periodic intervals.
The varsity would henceforth do centralised monitoring of the examiners with the help of travel agents on the lines of the arrangements made by the MCI. Internal assessment examinations would be uniform in all colleges.
The NTRUHS would give the question papers as is being done in final examinations.
Security features
Dr. Rao further said steps were taken to issue certificates with security features like holograms to medical graduates from this year.
Post-graduates have to submit their thesis online after self-attesting the plagiarism-free certificates counter-signed by the principals.
The NTRUHS has resolved to offer various new courses with B.Sc., in paramedical subjects, postdoctoral fellowships and certificate programmes and to give Teacher Identification Numbers to the faculty members. The entire administrative work of the NTRUHS is being computerised with the help of the National Informatics Centre, the V-C added.
