National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) – A single entrance test conducted all over India for admission to MBBS courses in government-run medical colleges, private colleges, deemed universities and minority institutions — is no doubt a welcome step. It is a huge relief to thousands of aspiring doctors and anxious parents who were earlier made to run all over the country in order to appear for the entrance tests conducted separately by different medical schools. This process imposed a massive financial burden on the parents apart from causing enormous anxiety.

Any change -good or bad- is met with opposition. While most agree in principal that NEET is for overall improvement in quality of candidates who undergo medical education, the timing of the Supreme court judgement is such that makes people oppose it even while they agree to it.

One of the main opposition is the language in which NEET is going to be conducted which is Hindi and English. So the candidates appearing in vernacular languages for the respective state board conducted entrance tests find it difficult. So people oppose that how will the candidate prepare for NEET in such a short time in English? My question is immediately after getting admission the candidate will be required to know English and over and over above learning to be a doctor. Is there any Gujarati medical textbook?

Data shows that top rankers in every year of such medical colleges have been majority of English medium students. Considering the fact that Post Graduate and Specialty doctors need more English knowledge I think Supreme Court’s decision to conduct NEET in English is not totally wrong. However, the news is that Supreme Court is thinking of conducting NEET in 6 regional languages.

Another opposition is that students would have studied for the State test and not for the National test. I was wondering how come entrance to medical colleges of State and National are so much different? Are the syllabus different in these colleges or are they different? Are patients in such colleges are different? It has brought out a glaring problem that the State and National entrance tests were asking different kind of questions even when the college degree provided was same. Tamil Nadu didn’t have Multiple Choice Question (MCQ)- which is how a NEET exam is structured. Without MCQ the assessment of entrance test take time to assess and are very subjective.

The last opposition is that the test is conducted to suit CBSE students. This is the same argument on can do that GujCET is conducted to suit Gujarat Board students. More so for so many years the admissions were given on 12th standard marks. The papers of English Medium students were evaluated by Gujarati Medium teachers. This always lead to board toppers from Gujarati Medium. Was this not an injustice to English Medium students of Gujarat Board?
After many years of wait now both Engineering and Medical examinations are centralized for India. This will lead to students who can focus on understanding the topic rather than the language in college. This is how we will have better quality professionals in future – paving way for a better India.