The National Board of Examination (NBE), which will be conducting the Common Entrance Test (CET) for PG medical students, has decided to replicate the IIM model, an 'online test' format for the PG medical students.
The proposal for the new method has been sent to the Union health ministry and the NBE wants to kick-off with this from the next academic year without any glitches.
“The NBE has undertaken detailed planning. Given the size, it is possible to conduct the exam online only and this has been conveyed to the health ministry,” senior official in the health ministry disclosed.
Three years back, the IIM had switched over to the new computer-based testing. The new system offers a window of 10 days to appear for the online test.
A student can choose a particular date within 10 days of the given date as per his convenience. However, the tests will be held in a particular centre and besides invigilators, CCTVs and biometric identification systems will also be put in place for the exam.
Earlier this year, the health ministry had approached the NBE for conducting CET for PG students after the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) expressed its inability to hold the exams. AIIMS cited lack of manpower to conduct the examinations.
Approximately 60,000 students appear every year for various PG medical examinations. The AIIMS conduct PG entrance for 50 per cent of government seats-which comes to around 4,000 seats, while the rest are carried out by private colleges. All this will now be scrapped and there will now only be one CET for the PG students.
The NBE has also asked the ministry that they should get authority to set up the question paper. Officials in the NBE said that the agency will want complete freedom in conducting the exam, as this will avoid leakages.
A meeting to underline responsibilities is likely to be held on Monday in the health ministry along with officials of Medical Council of India (MCI), which has designed the curriculum and the eligibility criteria for the proposed CET.
The CBSE and AIIMS are also expected to attend the meeting. “The ministry is expected to give final signal on it and will assign clear-cut roles and responsibilities on Monday,” further added the official.