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Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday said that the education and health ministries are considering whether to conduct the medical entrance exam NEET-UG in pen and paper mode or online mode and a decision in this regard is expected soon. hopefully.
The Education Ministry has held two rounds of talks with the Health Ministry under the leadership of Union Minister JP Nadda.
Currently, NEET-UG is conducted offline – in pen and paper mode – in which students have to solve multiple choice questions on OMR sheets.
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is the largest entrance examination in the country in terms of the number of candidates appearing for the examination. A record more than 24 lakh candidates appeared for the exam in 2024.
“The administrative ministry of NEET is the Health Ministry and hence we are in talks with them about whether NEET should be conducted in pen and paper mode or in online mode. We have had two rounds of discussions with the Health Ministry under the leadership of JP Nadda. Whatever option is considered most suitable for conducting the examination, NTA is ready to practise, Pradhan told reporters.
The minister said that a decision in this regard is expected soon and the reforms will be implemented in the 2025 edition of the exam.
He said, “What will be the methodology of NEET, what will be the protocol…a decision on this is expected soon. We will notify it soon.”
NTA conducts NEET every year for admission to medical colleges. A total of 1,08,000 seats are available for MBSS course. Of the seats available for the MBBS course, around 56,000 seats are in government hospitals and around 52,000 seats are in private colleges. NEET results are also used for admission to undergraduate courses in dentistry, Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha.
The idea of switching to Computer Based Test (CBT) mode for NEET is not new and has been considered many times before. However, the push for exam reforms took a back seat following the paper leak controversy earlier this year.
In the wake of alleged irregularities in the NEET and PhD entrance NET, the Center had in July constituted the panel to ensure transparent, smooth and fair conduct of the examinations by the NTA.
According to the high-level panel headed by former ISRO chief R Radhakrishnan, multi-tier testing for NEET-UG could be a viable possibility that needs to be pursued.
“An acceptable framework may be developed with the extent of scoring and ranking at each stage and the testing objectives and number of attempts, etc.,” the panel recommended in its report.
While NEET was under investigation over several irregularities including alleged leaks, UGC-NET was canceled after the ministry received inputs that the integrity of the exam was compromised. CBI is investigating both the cases.
Two other exams – CSIR-UGC NET and NEET PG – were canceled at the last moment as a precautionary measure.
The panel also includes former AIIMS Delhi director Randeep Guleria, Hyderabad Central University vice-chancellor BJ Rao, K Ramamurthy, professor emeritus in the department of civil engineering at IIT Madras, People Strong co-founder and Karmayogi Bharat board member Pankaj Bansal, IIT Delhi . Dean of Student Affairs Aditya Mittal and MoE Joint Secretary Govind Jaiswal.
The committee was also tasked to examine the existing security protocols related to setting of question papers and other processes for various examinations and make recommendations to enhance the robustness of the system.
The panel had also selected two IIT Kanpur academicians as members – Amey Karkare, professor of computer science and engineering, and Debapriya Roy, assistant professor.
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