National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET) to be conducted once a year: HRD Ministry

Following the Health Ministry’s recommendation, the  Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has decided that the entrance test for undergraduate medical courses National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET) will be conducted only once in a year. On Tuesday, the registration dates and exam schedule for a number of competitive exams such as the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET), Graduate Pharmacy Aptitude Test (GPAT), Joint Entrance Examination-Main (JEE-Main), and the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) were announced by the National Testing Agency (NTA). In July, Prakash Javadekar, HRD Minister announced that the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main will now be conducted by the newly formed National Testing Agency (NTA). He also stated that the National Testing Agency (NTA) will conduct all the exams using a computer-based method. NEET will be held on 5th May 2019. Earlier, the HRD ministry has also decided that like JEE Main, NEET-UG will also be conducted twice a year and in an online mode. After Health Ministry’s recommendation, it has been decided that NEET-UG will be conducted once in a year in a written mode. All other exams to be conducted by the NTA will be computer- based. Earlier, The Health Ministry expressed their concerns to the HRD ministry and said that conducting NEET twice a year will put additional pressure on the students and the students from rural areas will be affected if the test is conducted using a computer-based method. According to a statement from the HRD Ministry:

“NEET will now be a single exam in pen-and-paper mode and in the same number of languages as has been conducted last year. This was done at the request of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which wanted the same pattern from last year to be maintained,”.

The UGC-NET December 2018 will be the first exam to be conducted by the NTA from December 9 to 23, 2018, while JEE-Main 1 will be conducted from January 6 to 20, 2019, and JEE-Main 2 from April 6 to 20, 2019.