NEET PG 2023 Likely to be Last, to be Replaced With National Exit Test For MBBS Students

NEET PG 2023 Vs NExT Exam: As per the NMC Act, NExT will serve as a common qualifying final-year MBBS exam, a licentiate exam to practise modern medicine and for merit-based admission to postgraduate courses, and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who want to practice in the country(India).

NEET PG 2023 Latest News: The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Postgraduate (NEET-PG) examination scheduled for April-May next year could be the last such examination as the admission to PG medical courses thereafter will be based on the results of the National Exit Test to be taken by final-year MBBS students, officials have said. At a high-level held on Monday, the National Medical Commission (NMC) is learned to have conveyed to the Union Health Ministry that it intends to conduct the National Exit Test (NExT) in December 2023, official sources were quoted as saying to news agency PTI on Wednesday. If held in December 2023, MBBS students of the 2019-2020 batch will have to appear for the examination. The results of the exam will also be used for admission to postgraduate medical courses from the 2024-2025 batch.

WHAT IS NExt Exam?

• As per the NMC Act, NExT will serve as a common qualifying final-year MBBS exam, a licentiate exam to practise modern medicine and for merit-based admission to postgraduate courses, and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who want to practice in the country(India).
• The Government had invoked in September the relevant provisions of the NMC Act to extend the time limit for conducting NExT by September 2024. As per the law, the commission had to conduct a common final-year undergraduate medical examination, NExT, as specified by regulations within three years of it coming into force.

WHO WILL CONDUCT NExT EXAM?

The Act came into force in the month of September 2020. The sources added that the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi may conduct the test instead of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences. Still, a decision on the matter is yet to be taken. Conducting NExT requires preparations such as working out modalities, syllabus, type, and pattern of the exam, officials said, adding students will have to be given adequate time to prepare for it.

WILL MOCK TEST BE CONDUCTED?

Mock tests would need to be carried out before the main test. The importance of NExT lies in the fact that it will be the same for everyone, whether trained in India or any part of the world, and hence it will solve the problem of foreign medical graduates and mutual recognition, officials added.

(With Inputs From PTI)