The NEET entrance test for undergraduate medical and dental programmes will be held on September 12, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced on Monday. The examination was originally scheduled to be held on August 1.
The application process will begin at 5 p.m. on July 13 through the National Testing Agency website, the Minister.
“In order to ensure social distancing norms, number of cities where examination will be conducted has been increased from 155 to 198. The number of examination centres will also be increased from the 3,862 centres used in 2020,” he said.
The Minister added that face masks will be provided to all candidates at examination centres. The NTA will also ensure that staggered time slots during entry and exit, contactless registration, proper sanitisation and seating with social distancing are implemented, in line with COVID safety protocols.
NEET (UG), or National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate), is used for admission to MBBS and BDS courses as well as programmes for alternative or traditional medicine and nursing. More than 16 lakh students appeared for the exam last year.
There is no clarity as yet on whether the NEET syllabus will be reduced or greater internal choice provided in the question paper, to take into account the fact that many school boards had reduced their syllabi by up to 30% due to the pandemic.
The NEET examination is usually held in May, soon after Class 12 board examinations, so that admissions can be completed by August. However, with the second wave of the pandemic causing a cancellation of the Class 12 exams, there had been uncertainty about the fate of NEET as well.
Last year, NEET was held in September, and then repeated in October to cater to those who missed the exam due to COVID. Some students had urged that multiple attempts be permitted this year as well, similar to engineering entrance examination JEE.
However, the NTA had earlier announced that NEET will revert to a single date in 2021. It will also be conducted in pen-and-paper mode, unlike JEE which is a computer-based test staggered across multiple sessions.
