Bengaluru: The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared decks for admission to MBBS, BDS and PG courses through a single common entrance test, the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET).
With the schedule proposed by the Union government and Medical Council of India (MCI) meeting the court’s approval, the NEET will be held in two phases, on May 1 and 2 and July 24 . The results will be out on August 17. The state government is expected to hold a series of meetings with all the stakeholders on preparing students for the testt.
"It is a challenge to prepare state students for NEET in such a short time. But as the PU department follows the NCERT science syllabus, appearing for the test should not be a problem for them," said an officer from the state medical education department.
Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) executive director, DS Ramesh said students who have not applied for the AIPMT scheduled on May 1 , did not have to worry as they could apply for NEET phase 2 , on July 24.
Dr. S.S. Harsoor, director, state medical education department, meanwhile, said it would hold a meeting of all the stakeholders to take decisions on various issues related to NEET.
NEET Infographics
Guest Column: I’m all for it, it will give us better docs, says Dr Prabhudev
It is a welcome move. Going by the Planning Commission of India, the country needs over six lakh doctors every year. But we are producing just 40,000 and even among them few go to rural areas.
The current medical admission process, especially in private colleges, is suspect for several reasons. Admissions in private medical colleges are riddled with seat blocking and other malpractices.
The quality of doctors produced changes from college to college based on their admission criteria like donations and tests. Most of these doctors know very little. I am sorry to say that MCI failed to look into these issues until now. The NEET is expected to bring radical changes in the system and put an end to all these problems.
In my opinion, NEET should have been introduced a few years ago when Mr. Kapil Sibal was the Union HRD minister. But it wasn't for several reasons. Now the Supreme Court judgement could boost the health sector of the country.
