NEET could be held twice a year, and discussions over several sessions for medical admission are still ongoing

From the following academic year, the medical admission exam, NEET, may be held twice a year. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had previously discussed holding the entrance exam in numerous attempts this year as well, but no solid answer could be found.

Vineet Joshi, director general (DG) of the National Testing Outlet (NTA), told a top news agency that thoughts of taking medical entrance exams numerous times a year are still on the table. If the consultations go well, it’s possible that NEET 2022 may be held twice a year starting next academic year.

The consultations between the two ministries on having multiple attempts at NEET started when Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank was heading the Ministry of Education.

As per the existing norms, the entrance exam for admission to medical colleges is held in pen and paper mode and in offline mode. The exam is held only once while for engineering, the entrance exam is held twice a year. To allow students more flexibility in the current academic year, the number of attempts were increased for JEE Mains 2021.

Medical aspirants too have been demanding to have multiple attempts at NEET. Earlier, the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) — a student body too had written a letter to the then Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal seeking multiple attempts at NEET. “It is heartening to see that the National Testing Agency will be conducting the JEE for engineering institutions four times this year, giving each student multiple attempts to give their best possible performance, and also allowing for students impacted by health and other concerns to skip a test without having to drop a whole year. A similar decision must be taken for other “high-stakes” exams, including at least NEET and CLAT for medical and law colleges respectively,” the SIO wrote in the letter