JOIN USOne country, one exam, many obstacles
The Union Health Ministry appointed a new board of governors to the Medical Council of India (MCI) last May to clean up a corruption-ridden council and revamp medical education.
The new Board came up with a big idea to replace the multiple medical entrance tests prevalent across the country with one nation-wide exam, the National Eligibility-cum-entrance test (NEET). Ironically, seven months later, the same board has locked horns with the Ministry over the implementation of the proposal.
While announcing its proposal, the Board stated that NEET would make life easy for aspiring doctors who typically appear for five to six entrance exams to secure an MBBS seat. At present, there are as many as 17 undergraduate medical entrance tests conducted by various states, private medical colleges and deemed universities.
The proposed exam was not meant to take away the management and minority quotas. The quota seats, however, would be filled up from a national merit list prepared on the basis of NEET. In other words, nobody outside the NEET list would find a place in the MBBS programme. A similar nation-wide entrance test was proposed for the post-graduate programme as well. Close to 35,000 MBBS seats and 13,000 PG seats were proposed to be filled up by these two examinations.
The Board also proposed exit examinations to ensure doctors receiving MBBS or MD or MS degrees meet minimum standards.
While the MCI notified the two entrance examinations on December 21, it kept the exit exam at bay for the time being. But a vision paper for 2015 suggests that exit exams are very much in the MCI's scheme of things and it is a matter of time, before these tests come into being.
On the NEET, the MCI kept its initial promise. The notification - a copy of which is available with Deccan Herald - says, “The reservation of seats in medical colleges for respective categories shall be as per applicable laws prevailing in states/union territories. An all India merit list as well as state-wise merit list of the eligible candidates shall be prepared on the basis of the marks obtained in the NEET and candidates shall be admitted to MBBS course from the said lists only.”
Many board members including Devi Shetty and chairman S K Sarin repeatedly said NEET would reduce the testing hassles of private medical colleges and hence had the support of many institutions.
But with medical colleges preferring to maintain a stiff upper lip, the most vociferous objection to NEET came from Tamil Nadu, which admits students in MBBS based solely on the 10+2 results and not on the basis of any entrance. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Karunanidhi took up the issue strongly with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh following which the health ministry decided to go slow on the NEET.
Meanwhile, the NEET was challenged in the Supreme Court with petitioners opposing its application in private medical colleges. Tamil Nadu government too intervened in the court detailing its objections. But on December 13, an apex court bench comprising Justice R V Raveendran and Justice A K Patnaik refused to interfere making it clear that MCI could go ahead with NEET for both government and private medical colleges.
But with political opposition from a key ally of the UPA government, the Health Ministry developed cold feet over NEET and decided to hold another round of consultations with the states.
Further, the private colleges, deemed universities and minority institutions are not legally bound to implement the NEET. To make that happen, an act of the Parliament is required as complex issues related to domicile and reservation are involved, sources told Deccan Herald.
As the MCI notifications apparently came as a surprise, the Ministry termed them “invalid” and pressed the cancel button. It argued that the MCI should have taken prior approval from the ministry before going ahead. While the MCI has refused to withdraw the notifications, the Ministry has taken the stand that it has overriding authority.
The Ministry officials clarified that even though the two notifications published in the gazette stand invalid, they could be revived later as and when the government wished. The Ministry also provided an honourable exit route for the board members - academics and doctors with little administrative background -- by arguing that their stubbornness for not withdrawing the two notifications might have arisen because of their poor knowledge of “official processes.”
The future of the NEET would depend on the views received from states and the Congress-DMK relations in the poll-bound Tamil Nadu. Whether it would come into effect from 2011 is anybody's guess but odds seem to be against it.
NEET: Quick facts
*NEET stands for National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test
* Admission to most of the 330 medical colleges in the country would be decided on the basis of NEET
* A single merit list would be created for the nearly 35,000 MBBS seats across the country
* The state, minorities, SC/ST and management quotas will be left untouched
* NEET may exclude Armed Forces Medical College, the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Post
Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research.
* These institutes have been set up by separate laws.
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