-By ArdorComm News Network
November 9, 2022
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Postgraduates (NEET-PG), which is slated for April to May of 2023, may be the last of its kind because, according to officials, final-year MBBS students will now be admitted to PG medical programmes based on the results of the National Exit Test.
The National Medical Commission (NMC) is believed to have informed the Union Health Ministry in a high-level meeting held on Monday that it aims to hold the National Exit Test (NExT) in December 2023, official sources stated on Wednesday.
MBBS students from the 2019–2020 batch will be required to take the test if it’s held in December 2023. According to them, the exam’s results would also be used to determine admission for students in the 2024–2025 batch to postgraduate medical programmes.
The NMC Act states that NExT will function as a common final-year MBBS qualifying exam, a licentiate exam for the practise of contemporary medicine, a merit-based admissions exam for postgraduate courses, and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who wish to practise in India.
The administration extended the deadline for conducting NExT until September 2024 by invoking the pertinent NMC Act provisions in September.
Within three years of it going into effect, the commission was required by law to perform a common undergraduate final-year medical examination, known as NExT. In September 2020, the Act became effective.
The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences may conduct the test in place of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, according to the sources, although no decision has been made in this regard.
Officials stated that in order to conduct NExT, preparations must be made, including developing the modalities, curriculum, type, and pattern of the exam. They also added that students must be given enough time to prepare.
Before the main test, practise exams would need to be administered.
According to officials, NExT is significant because it will be the same for everyone, regardless of where they received their training—in India or elsewhere in the world—and will thereby address the issue of mutual recognition for foreign medical graduates.
Source: PTI