NEET to be conducted twice this year, says Health Ministry

Many medical students and other relevant institutions are waiting for their entrance exam, but a recent update has arrived that the dates are not yet finalized. The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced at the start of this year that the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility-Test would be conducted twice, setting the stage for the examination to be structured along the lines of the Joint Entrance Examination (Main).

In this regard, the Health Ministry officials mentioned with their subordinates during the recent meeting of the Ministry of Education and the National Testing Agency, which has been organizing the test since last year, where the issues related to offline and online review modes have been addressed. “While we thought that many of the NEET applicants may still not be ready to enroll in the online mode examination, there is now a decision to conduct the test twice this year,” said a senior official from the medical education department of the health ministry. He explained that this would allow students to be ranked based on the best of the two scores, and since last year, this same format has been adopted in JEE(Main). “Our primary goal is to keep students stress-free and enable them to improve their scores,” another NTA official said.

Last week, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank said in an interview that there is a possibility of the examinations being conducted twice, offering students an additional attempt to be effectively addressed.

NEET normally carried out their exams every year in the first week of May, but the exams were postponed to September last year because of COVID-19. The NTA still has to announce the dates for this year’s exam, in which over 10 lakh students appear, despite its declining popularity over the years and a growing number of MBBS seats.