Telangana: NEET spoiling many NRI students dreams

Hyderabad: The requirement that qualification in Neet is mandatory is making it difficult for NRI students to study medicine in their homeland.

A pass in Grade 11 was enough for them to enroll into the MBBS until last year. Now, the students have to qualify the national medical entrance test. There are other difficulties, like the schedule of Neet and a syllabus that is different from what they may have been studying abroad.

Dr Bharath Reddy, director of a private medical college, said, “Indian students, including a majority from the Telugu speaking states, prefer to study medicine in their native country. Students from the US generally join MBBS while those from Gulf nations seek BDS admissions. In the US, pursuing medicine takes nearly eight years and so Indian parents show interest in sending their children here for medicine study,” he said.

Telangana Private Medical Colleges Association president Dr Lakshmi Narasimha Rao said Indian students settled abroad would be at a disadvantage even before they sat for Neet.

“Firstly the timing of the entrance test, likely in the first week of May, is not convenient. Students in the US usually write their Grade 12 exam in June. Their appearance for the test is almost ruled out. The syllabus that they study and the Neet syllabus are not even remotely similar,” he said.

Dr Narasimha Rao felt NRI students would have to wait for one year to prepare, write and qualify for the Neet after completing their 12th grade in the coming year.