National Exit (NExT) exam for medical graduates likely from 2024

The combined NExT exam will also serve as the mandatory licentiate examination for undergraduate medical students to practice modern medicine in India.

The National Exit (NExT) examination -- a common qualifying criterion for final-year undergraduate medical students, the measure for merit-based allocation of postgraduate seats, and the screening mechanism for foreign medical graduates wanting to practise in India -- will be introduced next year, according to a senior government functionary.

The National Exit examination will be introduced next year, according to a senior government functionary. (HT)

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The combined NExT exam will also serve as the mandatory licentiate examination for undergraduate medical students to practice modern medicine in India.

“The final decision is that the exit exam will be conducted in 2024. Preparations will be made accordingly,” said the official cited above, asking not to be named.

HT reported last month that regulations for the NExT examination for medical graduates were being finalised, and would be placed before India’s medical education regulator in a meeting in early June.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) in December last year put draft regulations related to NExT in the public domain for comments. The objective of these rules is to bring in uniformity in evaluation across the country with reference to the minimum common standards of education and training of medical graduates.

On May 26, the commission’s academic cell wrote to medical institutions to know the status of the current batches of final MBBS courses to help finalise the dates to conduct the test.

The exam is proposed to be conducted in two parts— NExT 1, which will be theoretical, and NExT 2, which will be a practical, clinical and oral examination covering seven clinical subjects or disciplines.

A second official said a mock test may be conducted to test the procedure and remove anxiety among students before the process is rolled out.

NMC, which is spearing the implementation of the combined exam, came into force on September 25, 2020 though the National Medical Commission Act, 2019.

Apart from the national eligibility- cum- entrance test (NEET), NExT will also be applicable to institutes of national importance such as the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in order to have a common standard for medical education in the country.

“The importance of the NExt lies in the fact that it will be the same for everyone whether trained in India or any part of the world and hence it will solve the problem of foreign medical graduates (FMGs) and mutual recognition,” health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a statement last year.

Meanwhile, at least 8,000 more MBBS seats have been added to the pool this year, taking the total number of undergraduate medical seats in the country to over 100,000.

“Fifty new medical colleges have received permission this year to start under graduate courses from next academic session that has added 8,195 more seats. The total number of MBBS seats now stand at 1,07,658 in Indian medical colleges,” said the first official cited above.

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Experts welcomed the move.

“We have achieved a reasonable number by creating 100,000 plus undergraduate seats; and now the efforts should be made towards ensuring quality. NExT will bring that quality. NEET and NExT were coined together in 2010 and the idea was to produce quality Indian medical graduates,” said Dr SK Sarin, chancellor, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, a deemed to be university.

“It is always good to bring uniformity in examination standards; therefore it is a welcome step. Also, NEET is conducted after 1 year internship, which makes candidates focus only on clearing the PG Entrance during the internship period that is meant to provide clinical training. At least now they will do their internship in peace,” said Dr KK Talwar, former chairman, board of governors, in supersession of erstwhile medical council of India.