MCI decided to implement NEET from the 2013-14 academic year. This year, the CET
will be jointly conducted by the DTE and DMER.
After year-long flip-flops over the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance
Test (NEET), the date for the Maharashtra Health and Technical Common Entrance (MHT-CET)
was finally announced on Wednesday18th Jan. The CET for entrance to all courses
in health sciences, pharmacy and engineering will be conducted on May 10th, by the
state government. With this, students who have been aspiring to get in
to medical colleges but have been under a cloud of uncertainty for the past few
months are certain to be relieved. Last year, the Medical Council of India (MCI)
announced that admissions to all MBBS and postgraduate medical courses from the
2012-13 academic session will be done through NEET. However, several state governments,
including Maharashtra, challenged the order.
High courts in Madras, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka also stayed NEET. In Maharashtra,
students and college associations also moved court. Finally, the MCI decided to
implement NEET from the 2013-14 academic year. This year, the CET will be jointly
conducted by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) and Directorate of Medical
Education and Research (DMER). Students have had to go through a lot of stress and
confusion over the last few months even as they prepared for the most important
examination of their life. A student from a Vile Parle college who did not want
to be named said: As NEET was to be conducted by the Centre; we were worried that
most parts of the syllabus would be based on the CBSE text.
Also, teachers said NEET would give weightage to the syllabus studied in Class XI
as well, which was another major concern. We were not sure what kind of questions
would be asked from the Class XI syllabus. We were following the developments in
newspapers. Sangeeta Srivastava, principal of T.P Bhatia College in Kandivli, said:
Several students start preparing for their CET right from Class XI. If NEET was
conducted this year, they would have lost out on the time needed for preparations.
The good students would have managed, but the average ones would have been left
with little options. According to Umakant Amrutwar, joint secretary of the Parents
Association of Medical Students, pupils should now be relieved. If the Centre had
conducted the test, then students following the central board curriculum would have
had an advantage over others. Pravin Shingare, in-charge director of DMER, said
the test would be conducted as usual.
Courtesy: Time of India
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