Education News

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has constituted a 12 member committee academicians to study the need of reforms in Examination pattern of 10th class and Intermediate. The committee will be headed by famous and eminent academician and Ex- Director of NCERT, Krishna Kumar. The committee with 11 more members shall study the existing examination practices at Tenth Class and Intermediate levels in the state. The committee has given six months time frame to submit its report. The main focus of the committee will be to relieve students from fear, anxiety and stress ans strengthen their knowledge in order to enable them to succeed in any examination with confidence.

The Krishna Kumar Committee shall also study the evaluation system being followed in the state for 10th and Inter classes. This is taken up considering the increase of applications for revaluation in SSC and Intermediate Public Examinations. The committee shall also review the present system of evaluation in comparison to the National Curriculum Frame (NCF).

The committee members include academicians such as Apoorvanand, University of Delhi; Lathika Gupta, Consultant, NCPCR; Farida Abdullah Khan, former Head of the Department of Educational Studies, Jamia Milia Islamia and R. Amurthavalli, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. The other members are Commissioner and Director of School Education, Director of Intermediate Education, Director of Government Examinations, Secretary- Board of Intermediate Education, Principal, Regional Institute of English, Mysore, Director of SCERT and Additional Director of School Education dealing with the subject.

This could be a good news for aspiring MBBS students. It is most likely that the Medical Council of India may go ahead with this plans of conducting all India level common entrance test called National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for admission to MBBS and Post Graduate Medical courses. The Supreme Court of India on 13th December 2010 clarified that MCI can go ahead with its plan to hold a single entrance exam for medical admissions from next academic year 2011-12, notwithstanding the pending petitions in the court. If the MCI issues the notification of NEET 2012, a single entrance test each for MBBS and MD courses shall come into force. Presently there are number of medical entrance tests at state and college levels. There are CETs conducted by States, separate test by private colleges and deemed universities. A unified entrance test shall bring down stress on the students. MCI has also proposed to conduct NEET-PG and NEET-SS for admission to Post Graduate and Super Specialty Medical Courses across the country. Syllabus, exam pattern and other modalities for NEET-UG is already released. The same formalities for NEET-PG and NEET-SS are being worked out.

There are 271 medical colleges in the country out of which 138 are run by governments and remaining 133 under private management. There are 31,000 seats on offer for MBBS and another 11,000 seats for PG medical courses. MCI also clarified that state quota in medical colleges would remain intact as National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) will draw up a merit lists at national and state levels separately for General Category, SC, ST and OBC and PD candidates.

The proposed NEET entrance examination would cover all medical colleges except AFMC- Armed Forces Medical College, AIIMS- All India Institute of Medical Sciences and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Chandigarh0 as al these were set up by separate laws and may be out of the purview of NEET. The new entrance test of the MCI may not interfere with the management quota of the medical colleges.

Following are brief statistics of medical education in India:

1. At present, there are 144 government funded medical colleges with a total intake capacity of 16,398 students.
2. There are 170 private medical institutes in the country with 19,085 seats. Out of these 170, there are about 50 deemed universities.

Syllabus for NEET-UG is displayed on the MCI website http://www.mciindia.org/tools/announcement/CoreSyllabus_NEET-UG.pdf . You can post your feedback on the syllabus before it is finalised by MCI.