Now, single entrance test for postgraduate medical courses

www.mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Jul 24, 2011: Medicos across the country will now have to take a single entrance test for admission to both postgraduate and super-speciality courses.

Close on the heels of CBSE being finalised for conducting the proposed National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for undergraduates (NEET-UG), the Medical Council of India (MCI) has also decided to go ahead with a single entrance test for admission to all postgraduate medical colleges and the super-speciality courses they offer.

The decision comes in the wake of Supreme Court’s recent directions in this regard. The NEET-UG for admission to MBBS is scheduled to be held in the month of May 2012 and the MCI has already formalised the common core syllabus for the same.

The common entrance examination for postgraduate and super-speciality courses is also proposed for 2012, but deliberations are still on to finalise the institution that will hold the test.

MCI sources said that discussions were underway to assign AIIMS to conduct the entrance test for its postgraduate courses, as well as those for other medical institutes like PGIMER (Chandigarh), JIPMER (Puducherry), CMC (Vellore), AFMC (Pune) and King George’s Medical University (Lucknow).

At present, institutions hold their own entrance examinations for their postgraduate medical courses.

The MCI proposes to hold the NEET-PG exam in Jan-Feb 2012 for admission in the academic year 2012-2013. The pattern of the test, distribution of questions across different MBBS subjects and model questions will be made available on the website in August 2011, they said.

The NEET-SS for super-speciality courses (DM/MCh) across the country is scheduled for June 2012 for the academic year 2012-2013, the sources said.

Meanwhile, MCI has already made public the core curriculum for the proposed NEET-UG by uploading the same on its website. It has sought feedback from the public within three weeks till August 11, 2011

Courtesy: Deccan Herald/PTI