New Delhi: The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), a qualifying exam for undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) medical students in India, has been thrown off schedule over the past few years in the wake of the Covid pandemic, resulting in overworked doctors and stressed students, say those part of the medical fraternity.
Conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), NEET for undergraduates is traditionally scheduled to be held in the first week of May and NEET for postgraduates in the month of January.
But in 2020, while NEET-PG was held on time, NEET-UG got delayed to September.
In 2021, NEET-PG was delayed twice, from January to April, and then to September. The delay that year was also caused by a case in the Supreme Court over revising the income criteria to determine the Economically Weaker Section quota for NEET admissions. NEET-UG in 2021 was again held in September instead of May.
In 2022, the PG exam was held in May, while the UG exam was held in July.
As a result of the delays, the subsequent counselling (or admission process) has also been thrown off track.
For example, the last round of counselling for 1,311 seats for the NEET-PG exams held in May last year is still on. This means over a 1,000 medical seats for 2022 are still empty in colleges across India.
According to the usual schedule, counselling begins within two months of declaration of results. This has now been extended by four to six months, say students.
In 2022, over 18 lakh students had appeared for NEET-UG and over 2 lakh candidates appeared for the PG exam.
Since NEET is a highly competitive exam, delay in its schedule exacts a heavy cost from students and medical institutions, say doctors and experts.
“The delayed examination has led to huge stress in the current medical workforce. With first-year students (PG) coming in months after the scheduled dates, doctors have to put in twice the number of working hours,” Dr Manish (who only goes by his first name), a resident doctor at Safdarjung Hospital, told ThePrint.
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Schedules gone haywire
For undergraduate medical students who clear NEET, a regular term starts in August, while for PG students it starts in May.
Explaining the chain effect caused by delays in conducting the exam, Dr Manish said, “The PG medical course is three years long. The graduating batch gives the exam and leaves according to schedule, but first-year students are joining eight-to-nine months late. We operate in hospitals with a third of the staff missing. Owing to this, the 24-hour shift which is allotted to every doctor about five times a month is now getting allotted 10-12 times a month.”
Terming such working hours as “inhuman”, he added that “the 24-hour shifts often spill over and end up becoming 36-hour shifts”.
As for school students preparing for NEET-UG, the constant delay in the exam schedule is leading to lack of motivation, as well as stress, said Dr Gaurav Gupta of Resonance coaching centre in Kota.
“The delayed exam has a two-pronged effect — first it shortens the first year of college for students. It is the year when they learn the basics of the human body. If this year is crunched, their learning curve gets negatively impacted,” he said.
Secondly, he added, students prepare on a schedule, and if the exam is delayed, their entire routine goes haywire, affecting their performance.
NEET-UG is the qualifying exam for admission to Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS), Bachelor of Ayurveda, Medicine and Surgery (BAMS), Bachelor of Siddha Medicine and Surgery (BSMS), Bachelor of Unani Medicine and Surgery (BUMS), and Bachelor of Homeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS) and BSc (H) nursing courses.
After undergraduate medical studies, a one-year internship is mandatory for aspiring doctors.
Recent controversy
The NTA has been trying to bring the NEET exam back on schedule, and has for 2023 announced that the UG exam will be held in May and the PG exam in March.
But a section of NEET-PG aspirants is demanding postponement of the exam again this year in order to get more time for preparation and close the gap between result announcement and admission process. Many aspirants whose internship doesn’t end by the deadline stipulated by the health ministry would also be ineligible to sit for the exam in March.
The end date for internships varies across institutes and states, but according to students ThePrint spoke to, previously most states would have completed internships by November-December, allowing students to sit for the January PG exam. However, in the past two years, because of the pandemic, academic years have also not always followed schedule, leading to varying internship end dates.
Dismissing the demand for postponement, however, health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in Parliament last Friday: “We have decided that students who complete their internship by August 2023 will be allowed to appear for the exam so that no university is left out of this process in the country.”
He added: “The exam is supposed to be held on March 5, and this was declared five months back. So, the students who want to prepare have been preparing for the exams. If I keep postponing it, we will be in such a situation that earlier it was delayed by seven or eight months. Then it was a four-month delay. Because of Covid, the entire channel was broken. It is important to set this right,” he added.
Last year, candidates who had cleared NEET-PG held in September 2021 had started protests across the country demanding quick counselling.
This year as well, with the PG exam set for March and counselling scheduled for September, aspiring doctors will be able to join the medical workforce only by the year-end, say those part of the profession.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also read: NEET-PG 2021 counselling: Protesting doctors return lab coats, hold march