NExT exam time limit extended until Sep 2024; Govt invokes NMC Act
By Team Newsable | First Published Sep 29, 2022, 12:34 PM ISTThe NExT will serve as a common final year MBBS qualifying exam, a licentiate exam for modern medical practice and merit-based admission to postgraduate courses, and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who wish to practise in India.
The government has invoked provisions of the NMC Act to extend the deadline for conducting the National Exit Test (NExT) exam for final-year MBBS students until September 2024.
Though there has been no official confirmation that the NExT exam will not be held in 2023, the Union Health Ministry's gazette notification on September 23 invoking section 59 of the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act states that the regulations for conducting the exam have yet to be framed. The formation of an examination cell is in the works.
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The NMC Act requires the commission to hold a common final year undergraduate medical examination NExT within three years of its implementation.
The Act came into force in September 2020. The NExT will serve as a common qualifying final year MBBS exam, a licentiate exam for modern medical practice and merit-based admission to postgraduate courses and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who wish to practise in India.
According to the notification, "despite the passage of nearly two years, regulations in the matter have yet to be framed, and the establishment of the examination cell is in the works."
"Now, therefore, in the exercise of the powers conferred by Section 59 of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, the Central Government hereby issues the following order to remove the aforementioned difficulties," the statement said.
This order shall be known as the National Medical Commission's first (Difficulties Removal) order, 2022, and shall enter into force upon publication in the Official Gazette.
"In sub-section (3) of Section 15 of the Act, the words 'three years' shall be substituted for the word four years," the notification stated.
According to official sources, NEET-PG is held in April or May each year, and because NExT is supposed to replace it, the exam must also be held in April or May.
Officials stated that conducting an exam necessitates preparations such as working out the modalities and deciding on the syllabus, type and pattern of the exam, whether it will be an analytical or multiple choice questions-based test, number of tests, and requisite regulations.
Students must also be given adequate time to prepare for the new exam, adding that mock tests must be held and that it must be determined which agency will administer the exam.
The significance of the NExt exam is that it will be the same for all MBBS students, whether trained in India or abroad and thus will solve the problem of foreign medical graduates (FMGs), according to officials.
(With inputs from PTI)
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