Revisiting NEET

The medical health education systems in India have not grown qualitatively over the years in spite of a massive expansion in the number and interventions from various stakeholders. The chapter on health education in the draft National Education Policy (NEP),2019 also does not provide for any improvement on quality, and is subject to many contradictions and ambiguities.

The proposal for a national common exit exams at the end of the fourth year, which will also serve as an entrance test for postgraduate programmes, like the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test postgraduate (NEET-PG),is very likely a farce. Mandating exit exams for prospective postgraduate students massacres the tradition of clinical practice after graduation and the ideology of serving the rural public. The medical graduates will be carried away by the competitive multiple choice question (MCQ) exams, rather than the acquiring of clinical skills. As per a senior professor from a government medical college in Tamil Nadu,