11.5 lakh students to take NEET this year

Admission to medical and dental institutes in the country is likely to get harder in this year, with almost 11.5 lakh aspirants registering for the National Eligibility-cum-entrance Test (NEET) 2017. Last year, NEET was conducted in two phases and attempted by 7.5 lakh candidates. There are around 56,000 seats in medical and dental institutes across the country.

“In 2016, many students ended up skipping the entrance exam because NEET called for the CBSE syllabus whereas most students were depending on state board syllabus for their state conducted entrance examinations. Along with fresh candidates, most who took a drop of a year will also be vying for these seats this year,” said Sudha Shenoy, parent.

Medical admissions has faced a lot of changes in the past few years, starting from May 2013, where the NEET exam was held for the first time for admissions to medical and dental courses. The same exam was scrapped by the Supreme Court in September 2013, forcing state governments across the country to conduct their own entrance exam for health science aspirants (based on CBSE syllabus).

Officials from the state claimed that this spike in number of applications to NEET 2017 can also partly be blamed on Maharashtra government’s decision to scrap CET. “Since Maharashtra will no longer conduct a common entrance test for any of the health science courses, all students from the state have to apply for NEET,” said Dr Pravin Shingare, director, Directorate of Medical Education & Research (DMER).

NEET 2017 will be held across the country on May 7, 2017.