On Monday, August 1, the Parliament gave approval to two important bills regarding the conduction of National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). Once the bills are passed, the admission to medical and dental courses all over the country will be done through a single common entrance test from next year. The government said that NEET is designed to curb corruption by bringing in transparency, checking multiplicity of exams and to stop exploitation of students in counselling.
Almost all the parties supported the government’s consent for NEET, except AIADMK, which opposed it and staged a walkout, arguing that it will affect the rural students who do not study CBSE syllabus.
(Read: NEET Phase II 2016: Kashmir govt establishes special facilitation centers, admit cards to be curfew passes)
More clarification on NEET:
Health Minister JP Nadda gave the following clarifications, while responding to contention by some members that it will benefit private institutions:
- Under the new system, exams to private colleges will also be conducted under NEET
- National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) is intended to check multiplicity of exams, to bring transparency to curb corruption and to stop the exploitation of students during counselling
- Earlier, students would have to travel long distances to appear for several medical entrance examinations but the new legislation will bring this to an end
- The exam will be held on the basis of NCERT syllabus and the under-graduate exam will be taken up by CBSE and post-graduation by the national board of examination
- The health ministry has written to all the states seeking details about the number of students who appeared in local languages in the last three years so that the Centre can make plans accordingly
- “In the syllabus, we bring parity. Concerns of the state governments will be addressed. We will do standardisation of syllabus so that rural students can also be taken care of,” said the minister
The Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the Dentists (Amendment) Bill, 2016, approved by the Lok Sabha earlier, were passed by the Rajya Sabha through voice vote.
[“source-gsmarena”]