Students preparing for admissions to medical (MBBS), dental (BDS) and pharmacy undergraduate (UG) programmes have called for the central government to release dates of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2021.
The competitive examination is usually conducted once a year by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on the first Sunday of May. However, the agency is yet to announce the NEET UG 2021 dates yet.
In the wake of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown, the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) was conducted in September last year.
Now, as per the report by TOI, the NEET UG exam will be conducted in pen and paper mode between June and July 2021.
Following the announcement of four attempts this year for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Main) for admissions to engineering, architecture and technical UG programmes, students have appealed that there should be multiple attempts for NEET 2021 too.
Students said the dates of NEET 2021 should be released soon and the central government should provide more than one attempt for the same considering the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
While speaking to TOI, Amit Khare, secretary, higher education said that although there were demands for multiple sessions in the online mode, biology students might need more time to practise and get used to the computer-based exam. Thus, he added, before any such decision, they will give six to eight months’ notice.
He added that the exam dates will be announced soon.
In February, Education Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal, while speaking to Times Now, had announced that the Ministry of Education is considering conducting NEET 2021 more than once, just like JEE Main 2021.
NEET UG is conducted for admission to MBBS/BDS courses and other undergraduate medical courses in approved/recognized medical/dental and other colleges/institutes in India.
(With inputs from FPJ's Ronald Rodrigues)
