‘Will hold NEET-SS exam on Jan 10-11’: Centre tells Supreme Court after rebuke

NEET-SS exam: Last week, the Supreme Court pulled up the government for last-minute changes in the pattern of NEET-SS, telling the government not to “treat these doctors as footballs in this game of power.”

NEW DELHI: The Centre has decided to defer the National Entrance Eligibility Examination for super speciality courses (NEET-SS) scheduled to be held in November to January 2022 to give postgraduate doctors time to prepare for the new examination pattern.

The Union government has told the Supreme Court that it has decided to give candidates applying for NEET-SS two more months to prepare for the examination (ANI)

About 41 postgraduate doctors have approached the top court, complaining about they were informed about the change in the examination pattern only on August 31 when the Information Booklet was released by the National Board of Examinations. The examination was notified on July 23.

The government’s decision to defer the examination comes a week after the Supreme Court told the Union government not to “treat doctors like footballs” and asked the government to reconsider its decision on last-minute changes in the entrance examination pattern for super specialty medical courses.

In its response filed before the Supreme Court on October 1, the Centre said: “With the modification of 100% weightage to the questions pertaining only to the feeder course of the broad speciality (MD, MS) where they have already undergone those courses, in the circumstances, it was decided that the NEET-SS be deferred by a period of two months and be held on January 10-11, 2022, so as to provide ample or sufficient time and opportunity to all of them for their preparation for the entrance examination under the revised scheme/pattern.”

The doctors were aggrieved that since 2018, 60% questions were from the super speciality stream that they applied for while the remaining 40% questions came from the broad super speciality courses or feeder course, i.e. MD or MS.

The super speciality examinations are conducted for filling more than 4,200 seats in Doctorate of Medicine (DM), Master of Surgery (M.Ch) and Doctorate of National Board (DrNB).

This year, the examination had 100% questions from the feeder course, thus placing students who prepared for their respective super speciality stream at a disadvantage.

On September 27, the court told the Centre, NBE and National Medical Commission to devise a solution. “Don’t treat these doctors as footballs in this game of power,” the court said, even urging the Centre and NBE to consider conducting the examination this year on the old pattern.

The Centre was unwilling to change the examination pattern stating that any change now will affect those students who have prepared as per the revised scheme. Moreover, NBE told the court that the pattern was changed to avoid wastage of precious DM/MCh/DrNB seats that go vacant each year.

The Centre said 545 seats remained vacant in 2019, while last year, this number rose to 805.

“The NEET-SS in the revised scheme seeks to assess the candidate’s competence in his/her broad speciality and not in a super speciality that he/she, as yet has no training, whatsoever in…Therefore, the modified scheme has not mandated the applicant candidates to study something different from what they have not studied earlier,” the affidavit stated.

So far, the NBE has received 11,911 applicants for NEET-SS and this number is expected to rise to about 18,000.