Bengaluru: With the Supreme Court dismissing the Centre’s petition seeking a few modifications to its order passed on Thursday on the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET), the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) will now hold examinations only for engineering and non-mainstream medical courses, including Ayurveda, Homoeopathy, Sidda and Unani on May 4 and 5. The Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) has, however decided to cancel its Medical UGET scheduled for May 8.
Dr M K Panduranga Setty, vice president of the state private professional colleges' association, points out that the COMED-K medical admission test has lost its relevance with the Supreme Court making NEET compulsory . KEA officials say there is no question of cancelling the CET medical, however, as its ranking is also used to allot seats for various courses like Ayurveda, Unani, Sidda, Homeopathy and B.Pharm.
But the over 1.2 lakh CET and 1.8 lakh COMED-K , who applied in the past for admission to their MBBS courses to these two examination authorities ,will now have to wait for a new examination notification under NEET. Going by the Supreme Court’s direction, NEET 2 will be held on July 24.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) ,which has been given the responsibility of holding NEET 2 is expected to issue the relevant notification in a couple of days, clarifying on various issues like the application and examination procedures, and the different rules and regulations.
An officer of the state medical education department assures that state students who have not applied for AIPMT or NEET 1, will get a chance to apply for NEET 2. “They will get around two and half months to prepare for the NEET 2,” he noted.
AIPMT Pre-medical to be considered NEET 1
Those appearing for the All India Pre Medical Test (AIPMT) on May 1 don't need to apply for NEET 2 on July 24 as it will now be considered as NEET 1. Results of both NEET I and 2 will be announced on August 17 and the admission process will be completed by September 30. According to sources, the examination will be conducted off -line as over one lakh students from the state are expected to appear for it. The CBSE is making elaborate arrangements to hold the examinations in remote towns.
‘SSLC syllabus may not be at par’
Mr. M Lakshminarayan, Principal Secretary, Medical Education, revealed the state government will hold a high level meeting on NEET with the stakeholders concerned on Saturday. “There is concern that state syllabus students may not be not on par with the CBSE/ ICSE students when appearing for NEET and may need training to answer it. These and other issues will be discussed in the meeting,” said an officer.
According to CBSE sources, discussions are on over awarding two ranks, an all India rank and a state rank to all candidates, who clear the NEET. "Presently in Karnataka, the PG medical admission test is conducted by the DBE. But it's role ends with conducting the examination and allocating ranks.The KEA completes the seat allotment process through online counseling . A similar procedure will be followed in the NEET," said an officer.
Medical aspirants to pay more?
Medical seat aspirants may be forced to pay a hefty fee for MBBS/ PG seats post- NEET. “Till now private medical and dental colleges surrendered 40 per cent of their seats to the state CET and charged a nominal fee for them. This loss was made up by imposing a hefty fee on other category students like those from the All India Quota, Management quota and NRI quota. But now all these quotas are expected to become non- existent. This means the average fee for a seat in medical colleges is expected to hover around '6 to Rs 7 lakhs in the state,” said a representative of a private medical college.
COMEDK is expected to cancel its UGET for medical courses as the Supreme Court order has made all medical admission tests other than NEET unacceptable. “COMEDK allocates seats only for MBBS, BDS, B.E. and B.Arch courses. So UGET Medical will be a wasteful exercise now ,” said a member.
The NEET examination score card of the students will be used to decide their eligibility for admission to MBBS and BDS courses. To secure a seat in a government medical college or a government quota seat in a private medical or dental college, a student must produce a domicile certificate in Karnataka. “All the state rules regarding the admission policies, including fee structure, and reservation remain unchanged. Everything will be decided based on the marks scored by the student in the NEET examination,” said an officer of the medical education department.
Nowadays, students have to take some
70-80 exams which is inconvenient, expensive and not fair for the students belonging to the lower economic strata. The National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) is the way forward as long as the state government is given the freedom to take care of their social needs. The state should have the right to decide how they can issue seats to the underprivileged. If they decide that 10 seats need to be reserved for SC/STs then they should be able to do that, but the seats should be distributed as per the grades. The inhibition is basically the fear of the unknown and still I would maintain that it is the way forward— Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, CMD, Narayana Hrudayalaya
PUE director, Ramegowda says that since 2013 state syllabus students have been on a level playing ground with the CBSE students as both boards now follow NCERT textbooks. “There is no question of a superior or inferior syllabus. Both are the same,” he said.
Going by the Supreme Court judgement, all the deemed universities of the state, including KLE, Manipal, St. John’s, JSS, Devaraj Urs, Nitte and Yenepoya will now have to rely only on the NEET score card when allotting seats.
AICTE too planning single admission test
After the Supreme Court gave green signal to NEET to single admission test for admission to medical and dental courses, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is planning to introduce a similar test for all engineering courses from the academic year 2017-18. An officer informed this newspaper that AICTE had planned to introduce such a test for engineering courses in 2013 itself, but could not do so due to some reasons. "But the new Supreme Court order on NEET has provided a new lease of life to this proposal," he said.
