AYUSH Counselling: Open school, private students eligible for BHMS

NEW DELHI: Medical aspirants can now seek admission to the Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) course even if they studied in an open schooling system or took their board exams as private candidates. Plus, candidates who studied biotechnology in place of biology in Class 12 are also eligible.

The change in criteria for the undergraduate homoeopathy programme is among several changes notified by the central government to the National Commission for Homoeopathy (Homoeopathy Graduate Degree Course – Bachelor of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (B.H.M.S.) Regulations of 2022.

These rules govern AYUSH counselling and admissions, academics, evaluation and internships at homeopathy colleges across the country.

BHMS Admission: Private candidates, syllabus

The Centre has also a clause that deemed open school and private candidates ineligible to pursue the discipline.

A new clause requiring the state and central admission authorities to share the information about students admitted to the programme to the National Commission for Homeopathy (NCH), the apex regulator of homeopathy education and profession set up in 2020, has been added to the original regulations.

The Centre has also brought a few changes to the BHMS syllabus, teaching and assessment norms. Even with a competency-based dynamic curriculum (CBDC) already in place in the homeopathy course, new rules require the Homeopathy Education Board to periodically prepare syllabi under the new framework.

The revised norms appear to put more emphasis on fundamental subjects at the expense of more specialised courses. The number of teaching hours for for homoeopathic materia medica and homeopathic philosophy subjects in the second year of BHMS have been increased from 180 to 250 each, while those for for pharmacology, surgery and gynecology and obstetrics have been reduced in the range of 36 to 58 hours.

BHMS Course: Exams

The rules now also clarify that if a student fails in either theory or practical exam, it'd be deemed as failure in the entire subject. They will have to repeat both the tests. It has also been elaborated that the university-level summative assessment at the end of each year would include the complete syllabus for the respective year.

Among other changes, a clause specifying the relative weightage for various parameters to evaluate learners in elective courses, such as innovation and depth of problem definition, extent of work undertaken, has been removed.

Plus, obtaining a provisional degree certificate from the university is no longer a prerequisite for joining Compulsory Rotatory Internship.

Homeopathy is one of the six alternative medicine disciplines in AYUSH – the others are Ayurveda , Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Sowa Rigpa – and at the central level, admission is through counselling by the Ayush Admissions Central Counselling Committee (AACCC). States manage AYUSH counselling for their own colleges and seats.

Clarification: The original version of this story said that a minimum aggregate score of 50% in PCB was no longer a condition for admission to BHMS. This was incorrect and based on the language of the notified regulations. The relevant section in the new regulations is in the image given below. The error is regretted and has been fixed.

Caption: Amendments notified in the new regulations for BHMS course