NEET will replace Eamcet for MBBS admissions in Andhra Pradesh too.
This article deals with the Government of Andhra Pradesh agreeing to hold National Eligibility cum Entrance Examination (NEET) replacing the Eamcet. The article begins with a detailed description of NEET. It brings out the advantages and disadvantages of the single common entrance examination (CET) as decided to be held by the Medical Council of India (MCI) consequent upon the directions issued by the Supreme Court. The apprehensions expressed about the single common entrance by some are given.
What is NEET?
• As per the Supreme Court directions, only single common entrance examination (CET) should be conducted for the purpose of admission to the post gradate medical courses including MBBS admissions in 2012 onwards. The score will also be applicable for admission to the BDS courses.
• The scheme was accepted by the Union Health Ministry and the same was conveyed to the Supreme Court of India which had issued instructions to conduct a single common entrance examination for the entire country.
• Before taking a final decision, the scheme of hold single common entrance examination were circulated to the state governments to solicit their views.
• The Medical Council of India (MCI) will hold this examination at an al India level for admission to MBBS across the country from 2012. This examination is named as the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
• There are about 40,000 seats across the country in about 300 government and private medical colleges.
• The eligibility for writing this exam is a pass in 12th class examination with a minimum of 50% (General category) and 40% (Reserved category) marks in aggregate of Physics, Chemistry and Biology from a recognized board before admission.
• The medium of examination was earlier announced as English and Hindi. The government has accepted to include regional languages too as a media since there were objections from certain states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, West Bengal etc.
• The examination will be paper based and will consist of 250 questions of the single response type Multiple Choice Questions MCQs). 30% marks each will be allotted for Physics and Chemistry and 40% marks are allotted for Biology. So there will be 75 questions each for Physics and Chemistry and 100 questions will be for the Biology.
• The format of all the questions will be multiple choice (MCQs). The duration of the test will be of three hours. The notification for the 2012 NEET is likely to be issued in the last week of November 2011.
• The candidates can apply both online and offline for the examination. The application fee has been prescribed to be Rs. 1000 for the unreserved category and Rs 800 for the reserved category. The last date of application will be January 15, 2012 by 12 noon.
• The Admit cards for the examination are to be issued by April 15, 2012. The proposed examination date will be the last Sunday of May. Andhra Pradesh government's decision to replace Eamcet with NEET.
• The Andhra Pradesh Minister for Medical and Health DL Ravindra Reddy while briefing the media personnel made it clear that the government had already initiated steps to Eamcet medical examination with National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to the MBBS course from the next year.
• The minister said that the process for conducting the single common entrance examination was started as per the directions of the Supreme Court and the had already completed 90 % of the formalities and the rest 10% will be completed soon and the orders will soon be issued abolishing the Eamcet examination replacing it with NEET.
• Earlier, the state government had objected to the NEET for two reasons. Firstly, the government had objected to the proposal to conduct NEET since the students are left with very less time to prepare for the examination as they were not aware of the syllabus and guidelines for the new test. Secondly, the government objected to the test saying that the students pursuing their plus two studies in the regional language (Telugu) will be at disadvantage since the examination was announced to be conducted only the medium of English and Hindi.
• Countering the first objection, the state government was told that the new syllabus was available on the website of Medical Council of India (MCI) from July onwards and was free to download. The following is the url of the MCI website where the file containing the new syllabus is available in the pdf format: http://www.mciindia.org/tools/announcement/CoreSyllabus_NEET-UG.pdf
• The Medical Council of India had also sought the feedback on this issue. The Union Health Minister Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad also stated that when the MCI had consulted the states in 2009-10 about the feasibility of conducting the common examination at the all India level as per the directions of the Supreme Court, Tamil Nadu was the only state which had opposed the move and demanded the examination be conducted in regional language as well.
• As far as the second objection of the state was concerned, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad removed the main worry of the state by announcing that the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test will now be held in the regional languages as well in addition to English and Hindi. So Telugu also will be the medium of examination for the single common entrance now as announced by the Union Health Minister. As such, the students studying in Telugu medium at plus two level will not be put to disadvantage. Andhra Pradesh government's move to replace Eamcet with NEET criticized
• As soon as the Andhra Pradesh Minister for Medical Health, DL Davindra Reddy made his intentions clear to the press reporters that the government has decided to replace the Eamcet with NEET, there was volley of objections from a lobby of students, parents, academicians and college managements who termed the decision of the government as hasty and unilateral.
• They said that there is not enough time left for the students to prepare for the test according the revised format. They are of the opinion that the students have already completed the first year of their intermediate course and only five more months are left to complete their two year intermediate course. They say that in between they have to prepare for the practical examinations of their intermediate course which are to be held in February 2012. These will be followed by their Intermediate final examinations in March / April 2012.
• So they are of the view that their preparations for these examinations will be adversely affected. So they raise a question "Where is the time for the students to prepare the for the examination under the revised format and where is the time for the teachers to train them?"
• Some of the college managements are of the opinion that the government should reverse the decision and the students should be informed about any changes at least one to two years in advance. Advantages of conducting a single common entrance examination
Let us state some of the advantages which will be available for the single common examination like the National Eligibility cum Entrance Examination (NEET):
• The students will be saved from the botheration of appearing for several entrance examinations. It is reported that an average student appeared for several entrance examinations to try his or her chances for seeking admission to a medical college. So the single common entrance examination will remove the pressure and tension of the students since they will have to appear in one examination on one single day. So, many favour the new system of examination barring a few who oppose the same. Some politicians like M. Karunanidhi, the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu opposed the move since it interfered with the rights of the states in the matter of education which is a state subject.
• The single common entrance examination like the NEET will save a lot energy, tem and money of the students who will now be saved from appearing in several entrance tests. So this will obviously do away with the necessity for paying separate fee for several entrance examination and paying the cost of their application forms. It will save the students' time and energy as they need not to fill up so many forms for various entrance examinations.
• The students need not worry for separate counselling and examination dates and need not travel to different places for the venue of the examinations several times.
• There will be more clarity and transparency while conducting a single common examination. There will be a single examining body like the CBSE conducting the examination. So the set up and type of the question papers will be the same for the students of the whole country. Earlier CBSE used to conduct on 15% of the entrance examinations for the medical courses and not it will all be the responsibility of the CBSE. If an RTI has to be lodged by a student, he has to lodge it with a single authority. Disadvantages of conducting a single common entrance examination
The disadvantages of the new single common entrance examination pattern are not many. Some of the disadvantages as seen by the part of the society are as follows:
• Some people opine that if a student did not perform well in one entrance examination, he could avail the opportunity of doing perhaps better in some other entrance examination. This facility will not be possible now with the single common entrance examination.
• Some critics of the single common entrance examination point out that there may be more errors and mismanagement by the single authority conducting the examination. They think that there may be delays in delays in preparing the rank lists and publishing the examination because the volume of the work involved in conducting the examination on such a large scale involving several lakh examinees, thousands of examiners and examination centres throughout the country. Conclusion
• It will be apt to concluded that the student community should take advantage of the judgement passed by the Supreme Court and should thank Mr Simran Jain whose petition made the Supreme Court to give directions to the government for holding a single common entrance examination for admission into about 300 medical colleges run by the government and the private managements throughout the length and breadth of the country.
• The centralised admission will make it possible to select the right students to fill up about 40000 seats for MBBS and BDS courses and another 11000 seats for the MD courses out of over six lakh students who appear for this single common entrance test.
• The advantages of the single common entrance examination far overweigh the disadvantages for the same. So the decision taken by the Medical Council of India is in the interest of the student community if the test is conducted properly in the coming years. This novel step is surely like to bring the revolution in the examination system of the country.Latest news on the future of NEET in Andhra Pradesh
• Just a day after making its intention clear to do away with Eamcet exam from 2012, the Andhra Pradesh state government has backtracked from its earlier decision on October 28.
• The statement made by the government earlier faced a lot of opposition from students, parents and college managements who expressed their resentment against the state government's announcement to replace the Eamcet with NEET for admission to MBBS next year.
• Yielding to the pressure from various sections of the public, The Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy held a review meeting on October 28, 2011 and the state government has decided to write to the Central government about the difficulty in implementing NEET in the middle of the academic year and to urge the Centre to allow the state government implement NEET from 2013 to enable the students to prepare for the examination in the new format.
• Now it is to be seen whether the Centre agrees to the state government's request.Andhra Pradesh exempted from introducing NEET for two years
The Andhra Pradesh government has prevailed upon the Central government to made it agree to postpone holding of the NEET from 2014 onwards. The Central government has given its nod in this respect while announcing its decision on November 18, 2011 and has exempted the state of Andhra Pradesh from holding the National Eligibility-cum Entrance Test (NEET) for admissions to MBBS for a period of two years. The centre has sent an official communication in this respect to the State government. The Andhra Pradesh government had been trying for the last several months for getting the exemption. It was also likely to file a petition in the Supreme Court in the matter. The state government had been representing to the union government making a plea regarding the difficulties which will be faced by the state students if the test was not kept in abeyance for some time. Students, parents and the college management had a sigh of relief and were happy to get the exemption. They said that the students could now focus their attention in preparing for the Eamcet for medical admissions.NEET likely to be postponed latest up date as on November 25, 2011
• The latest news abut the NEET proposed by the Medical Council of India (MCI) as a single common entrance examination for undergraduate medical students announced for May 13, 2012 is likely to be postponed for a year. The test is now facing a tussle between the Union Health Ministry and the Medical Council of India wherein the Union Health Ministry is approaching the law ministry proposing to defer the test at least for one year.
• We must recollect that the single common entrance test was mooted by the Medical Council of India when some students when some students approached the court alleging that there were too many entrance tests for MBBS and the Supreme Court gave its nod for a single common entrance examination for the entire country.
• The problem started when some of the states showed their intention either to oppose the common entrance examination (CET) fully while some others wanted its postponement. Since the Supreme Court of India has already given a go ahead for the test, the Union Health Ministry is caught in a legal dilemma and has now sought the advice of the law ministry whether the test could be postponed for a year.
• Presently, the NEET is facing a rough whether and there is a lot of confusion whether the test will be held as scheduled or it would be postponed. Due to the objections received from several states and to sort out some other related issues with the holding of the test, the Union Ministry of Health has sought the opinion of the Law Ministry whether it could defer the holding of the test for one more year. So the final decision now rests on the Union Ministry of Law whether the test would be deferred for a year or it would be held on its scheduled date of May 13, 2011.
• Any news of the matter and any decision taken by the government in this matter will be given as an update to this article from time to time.
The article has been updated since the Central government has exempted Andhra Pradesh from NEET for a period of two years up to 2014.