A common medical entrance test is an idea whose time has come (albeit a little too soon)

In keeping with India’s stereotypical obsession with the medical profession, lakhs of candidates apply every year for a few thousand undergraduate medical seats spread across the country. However, just 0.6% of those who appear for the most popular undergraduate exam, the All India Pre-Medical Test, are able to crack it.

Aspirants prepare for years before running from one state to another to get forms, sit for the exams and then attend counseling sessions in various colleges – all for that one coveted seat.

Now, it is hoped that this chaos will be a thing of the past.

The Supreme Court on Thursday put an end to years of debate and confusion by clearing the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, a common examination for all medical colleges in the country.

The Central Board of Secondary Education will now conduct the exam in two phases on May 1 and July 24, allowing students to vie for more than 52,000 medical seats through a single test.

The All India Pre-Medical Test, to be held on May 1 as the first phase of NEET, will now be the umbrella exam to gain entry into any undergraduate college for medical and dentistry courses in the country, with the exception of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. More than six lakh students have registered for it.

The move is aimed at streamlining the admission process, thereby saving students the trouble of preparing and appearing for multiple exams. However, there are concerns about how students will cope with the order, given that it comes just three days before the scheduled date of the All India Pre-Medical Test.

On Friday, the government told the court that entrance exams for the year in several states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were in the offing or going on, and a sudden change in the schedule and system would lead to confusion and more pressure on lakhs of students. However, the court said that the first phase of NEET will go ahead on Sunday as planned.

Less trouble

During proceedings earlier this month, the Supreme Court bench was told that any notification for a test needs to be given by December of the preceding year.

However, the court said the notification could be made this year itself if the Union Health Ministry were to mobilise its resources and work in tandem with the Medical Council of India and the Central Board of Secondary Education.

Students are conflicted on the issue.

Priyanka, a student from Silchar in Assam, said that the Supreme Court’s decision makes her life easier now that she will have to give only one exam for all the colleges.

“I was scared of having to go to five different cities just to appear for entrances and then applying in each college individually. But now that is over,” she said. “I think this [the order] should have come sooner, so that we knew earlier what we had to study. But at least it’s being implemented this year.”

In 2013, a Supreme Court judgement had termed NEET “illegal” and “unconstitutional”, reasoning that it took away the rights of private and minority institutions to have their own admission processes.

On April 11, the Supreme Court recalled that order, paving the way for NEET to be held this year itself so as to save students some trouble.

Unfair advantage?

Some medical aspirants, however, are not entirely convinced.

“This last minute notification just makes everything more complicated,” said Pradyum Devaiah, a student from Delhi who is appearing for AIPMT this year. Devaiah has prepared for at least ten different exams to increase his chances of getting a seat this year, but said his future hangs on one exam.

“I do not know what I will do if I do not do well in this one,” he said. “What is wrong with having options? There can be a bad day and I will have to waste a year to apply again.”

Devaiah said that one of the more troubling aspects of a common entrance exam is that some students who hadn’t registered for AIPMT earlier would now be able to sign up for it, and get extra two months of preparation.

“This makes it an unequal game because everyone prepares for two years, but those who didn’t want to give AIPMT are at an advantage,” Devaiah said. “Why should their exam be held later than ours if it gives them extra two months to prepare, which could make all the difference?”

Way forward

The government, however, maintains that a common entrance exam is the way forward if medical education in the country has to be streamlined and reformed. In February, a standing committee on the Medical Council of India placed its report in the Rajya Sabha, where the issue was debated and discussed at length.

The report not only recommended a common entrance exam at the undergraduate level to negate the influence of factors such as money in the admission process, but also called for a complete overhaul of the medical training system.

“The existing system of the graduate medical education in the country has failed us,” the committee observed. “It is public knowledge that the majority of seats in private medical colleges are allotted for a capitation fee going upto Rs 50 lakh and even more in some colleges, despite the fact that the capitation is not legal.”

Adding that the capitation fee charged by some private colleges was just scratching the surface of the rot in the medical education, the committee noted that some students entering the system may not have gone through the same level of rigour as others, and hence a common entrance system was a necessity.