MBBS in Habiganj Medical College

For the most part, the MBBS in Bangladesh is promoted as a business by consultancies as that of a private college course. Indeed, the tuition fee at any popular brand among the local population, like the Southern Medical College or the Bangladesh Medical College, amounts to $30,000-$45,000 for the full course. Habiganj Medical College is an outlier in this regard since it is a government-run college operated by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) of the country. The whole tuition schedule there is regulated by a government order and not by the private trust, and hence a full five-year tuition amounts to just $8,670 (Rs. 7.38 lakh) — a much smaller sum compared to that charged by other private colleges in the country and more or less similar to that in India.

There is a clear reason for this disparity, and it is associated with the origin story of the college. Back in 2014, the government of the country approved the establishment of six more public medical colleges in the district towns, where there were none before: Habiganj, Manikganj, Sirajganj, Jamalpur, Tangail, and Rangamati. Habiganj received approval, yet nothing could be done due to the lack of campus infrastructure; it became possible to admit students only in 2017. Thus, when in January 2018 the first batch of 51 students began attending classes at the college, it happened in the 250-bed Habiganj Sadar District Hospital, and it remains the core of the educational process there to this day, while the construction of the permanent 25-acre campus situated on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway goes on in phases.

As is expected for an ongoing project, the current figures differ from the ideal scenario. According to the latest audit report of the Directorate General of Health Services, only 47 of the 83 approved positions were filled at the college, resulting in the ratio of about 11:1 student-to-teacher, slightly exceeding the 10:1 recommended ratio of Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council. It does not constitute any crisis yet and recruitment is underway, but it must be taken into account against the fee advantage in terms of comparison with colleges that boast of a more complete teaching staff roster.

Initially, Habiganj Medical College was affiliated to the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, but starting from 2020-21, it has been affiliated with the newly established Sylhet Medical University, which conducts the professional exams and grants the degree. The enrolment there keeps growing; today, approximately 500 students study there in total across all five years of education, with the yearly admission of 51 more through the DGHS centralised admission process.

The district town of Habiganj is located in Sylhet Division in northeastern part of the country, 157 km to the northeast of Dhaka and 75 km to the south of Sylhet city, connected by road and railway to both places, the latter having the Habiganj railway station on its way. For students from India, particularly those from Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal, the geographical situation plays a role different from that of any other college located near Dhaka: the border between India and Bangladesh, specifically, of Tripura, is merely 60 km from the college, and the local dialect of Bengali language is quite close to that spoken in north-eastern India, so that the clinical interaction with the patient becomes easy. Regular direct flights connect Kolkata and Dhaka in about an hour, making the visits back home affordable.

Due to the fact that the teaching hospital operates right within the campus, the clinical placement does not involve any commuting that students at some large and scattered medical universities do. The case load resembles a truly regional government hospital and not some private one that is built specially to accommodate foreign students: the cases of tuberculosis, dengue, and complications in the field of maternal health are numerous there, thus mirroring the disease profile an Indian graduate is likely to see back home and not the cases that some richer private hospital tends to refer to somebody else. During the last year of study, students have approximately 800+ patient contacts.

The degree is recognised in the places that are needed for further career opportunities of an Indian student. The Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council regulates registration and a mandatory one-year rotatory internship, the World Health Organization puts the college on the list of the World Directory of Medical Schools, and India's National Medical Commission considers it under Schedule-I, thus granting graduates eligibility to take FMGE/NExT screening exam to get registered and practise in India.

Thus, the truth about Habiganj is as follows: it is a young and still developing government medical college, not a well-established brand, and the 51-seats admission per year via foreign/SAARC quota implies serious competition to enroll there. But what Habiganj has to offer in return is the tuition fees significantly lower than those of the private alternatives that are most actively advertised by the agencies, the teaching hospital operating right on campus, and the geographical position for a student from north-eastern India considerably less exotic than Dhaka, Chattogram, and Eastern Europe.