After following paper-pencil format for years, the All India Post Graduate Medical entrance (AIPGME) test for admission to all India 50 per cent quota is likely to be conducted online in December 2013.
While the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is reluctant to conduct the exam, the government is all set to propose the National Board of examination (NBE) to conduct the exam online. “We will soon be approaching the standing council for seeking legal opinion as according to a judgment by SC, the test is to be conducted by AIIMS,” said a senior official in the Union health ministry.
For the 15 per cent UG level seats, the same system will continue. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will conduct the exam as it has been doing.
In 2012, the government had introduced the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) which was conducted online for the first time by NBE. However, the Supreme Court had on July 18 quashed the Medical Council of India’s (MCI’s) notification calling that the MCI did not have mandate to conduct NEET for medicine, dentistry and postgraduate medical courses.
However, the health ministry sought review of the Supreme Court judgment on NEET for medical courses. “Since NBE has already prepared a online system. They will be able to replicate it better and if the review goes in their favour, we will not have to make much changes”.
More than 95000 medical doctors appeared for the first ever Common Entrance test for post graduate medical students. The new online test system that offered flexibility for aspirants to choose any date between November 23 to December 6, 2012. The NEET-PG was an eligibility examination prescribed as a single window entrance examination to all MD/MS/Post Diploma courses in the country, replacing other examinations like All India Post Graduate Entrance Examination and various state level postgraduate entrance or institution level entrance examination.
To make things work, the NBE had engaged the services of more than 250 faculty members across the country for creating a question bank.