Dentistry: by choice or chance? A questionnaire survey for pre clinical dental students

ABSTRACT

Historically, Indian education has been elitist. Currently, India has the second largest education system in the world preceded by China. In order to meet the demand for coveted dental education, private dental colleges have sprung across the country, making the access easy for the students to enroll into dental education programmes after their higher secondary education. This has lead to a suspicion whether these dental students had been forced into a course that they did not aspire of and even if they actually chose the career, are they performing as good as they expected to be once the course commences. This questionnaire survey aims at discussing these issues and to prepare the Indian education system at both school and college level to encompass and implement an orientation and motivation program to overcome this.