Admissions to all medical courses through NEET

Thiruvananthapuram: The state government has made it clear that the admissions to all medical and allied medical courses in the state will be through the National Entrance-cum- Eligibility Test (NEET).

Students who want to do medical and dental courses have  to qualify in the NEET examination  conducted by the CBSE. Those  who qualify in the NEET  from the state can choose  the medical or dental seats based on the score. The state will prepare the merit list and allot the  government quota seats.

Admissions to government quota seats in self- financing medical colleges would also be from this list. The admissions to self-financing medical colleges will be based on the inter se merit basis. All admissions, including management quota, should be done only on the basis of the NEET rank list. This would ensure  transparency to the admission process.

Future of JEE under question

The  proposal to  conduct common all-India engineering entrance examinations by the AICTE has posed a question on the future of the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) for IIT and  NIT admissions.

Former HRD minister Kapil Sibal had in 2012  attempted to make JEE the common test. However, this did not succeed as the IITs had refused to be part of the common test and insisted on an exclusive test for themselves.    It is not clear whether the proposed test would cover  IITs and NITs and whether the  JEE would continue.

Sources said that one of the proposals before  the HRD Ministry  was to set up an independent body dedicated to entrance tests for higher education like the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the United States.

Various agencies like CBSE, IITs, IIMs and AICTE conduct tests like CAT, JEE (Main), JEE (Advanced), GATE, CMAT, NEET and  NET every year. The plan is to introduce a National Testing Service (NTS)to conduct all these examinations to bring in more credibility to various entrance examinations and reduce the cost, sources said.