New Delhi: The Union human resource development ministry has dropped its ambitious plan to conduct the Neet medical and dental entrance exam twice a year and in online mode only following health ministry’s recommendations. “The change in the Neet exam pattern as against the statement earlier, which will now be a single exam in pen-and-paper mode and in the same number of languages as has been conducted last year, is on the request of the ministry of health and family welfare, which wanted the same pattern followed last year to be maintained,” the official said.
Subsequent to the tentative schedule released by the ministry last month, the HRD ministry on Tuesday made public the final schedule of examinations. Neet will be conducted on May 5, 2019. Last month, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar had announced that the newly-formed National Testing Agency would conduct the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, along with the Joint Entrance Examination-Main for admission to engineering colleges, twice a year. He had also said all exams conducted by the NTA would be computer-based.
