National Eligibility cum Entrance Test must for pursuing MBBS abroad

New Delhi: The growing deterioration in the quality of Indian medical students returning to the country as qualified medical professionals from universities abroad has resulted in the government moving towards taking a decision to make the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) mandatory for them.

The students who aspire to pursue MBBS or BDS abroad will be given a no-objection certificate by the Medical Council of India only if they have cleared NEET. The Central Board of Secondary Education has issued a notification on NEET 2018 saying that the decision was on the basis of a recommendation of the Ministry of Health.

The decision has been taken to ensure that students of some academic standard study medicine in foreign universities. Students who return home with medical degrees from foreign universities are made to sit for ‘Foreign Medical Graduate Examination’ by the Medical Council of India before being registered as medical practitioners. However, the fact remains that the passing percentage of these foreign degree holders has been astonishingly poor.

“Only 10-15 per cent of these graduates are able to clear the MCI licentiate examination every year which says a lot about the quality of students and standard of medical education they receive in other countries,” an official in the Health ministry said.

Every year, 6,000 to 7,000 students from the country go aboard mostly to Russia and China to pursue MBBS and BDS courses. “There are concerns about the quality of the students who can easily get a degree in medicine from abroad and the poor quality of education being imparted in the institutions they go to. By making NEET mandatory, we can at least address one of the main issues,” the official added.