Medical Entrance Examination

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts All India Pre-Medical/Pre-Dental Entrance Examination only for 15 per cent seats in the Government Medical/Dental Colleges in the country and candidates can opt for question paper either in English or in Hindi. For the remaining 85 per cent seats, the States conduct their own entrance examination and have the liberty to conduct it in their respective regional languages and, as such, there is no ban on use of regional languages as a medium for medical entrance examination

The Supreme Court, in Simran Jain case, has accepted the proposal of the Medical Council of India (MCI) to conduct common entrance test viz. National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to Under Graduate (UG) and Post Graduate (PG) medical courses in the country and directed the Council to take such steps as are necessary to implement the NEET. Accordingly, the Central Government has constituted a Committee to finalize the modalities for implementation of NEET

A few State Governments have expressed apprehensions about the proposed NEET inter alia relating to medium of the test. The Central Board of Secondary Education, which is the agency for conducting NEET for UG, has constituted an Advisory Committee consisting of Members from States to address the issues of admission processes prevalent in various States like reservation, medium of test, etc.

The above information was given by the Minister of Health & Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad in the Rajy Sabha today.