NEET 2018 : Government set to revert MCI order Open school students likely to be allowed to appear - Videos

Government set to revert MCI order; Open school students likely to be allowed to appear for NEET

Bringing relief to students of National Institute of Open schooling, the government has decided to revert a decision taken by the medical education regulator Medical Council of India to prevent them in appearing in the National Eligibility and Entrance Test this year.

Sources in the Union ministry of health and family welfare said that though the official notification in this regard is yet to come, a decision has been taken in the favour of students after the ministry of human resource development strongly opposed the move.

“The HRD ministry stressed in a meeting with the health ministry that the MCI order is against the government policy on equal learning and career opportunities for open school students as NIOS students are to be treated at par with regular students,” a government source said.

The MCI, in a communiqué, sent to the NIOS in December last year had said that students who pass out their class 12 boards will not be allowed to appear in the NEET, the entrance test for MBBS and BDS courses in the country, on the basis that they do not have practical component in their curriculum.

The MCI had also written that the order will apply to students attached with state open schools as well.

“There were three points on which the decision was taken—stream, curriculum and duration of the course vis a vis regular students. Since NIOS syllabus does not have practical component, there is no matchability with the regular students,” a senior official in the Undergraduate section of the MCI told this newspaper. “The NIOS students had been enjoying the privilege thus far ( in the context of NEET) but we thought it was not justified and therefore we came up with the order this year

An HRD ministry official, however, said that the reason given by the MCI could not be the basis to deny NIOS students an opportunity to appear from pre-medical tests.

“On many occasions, when students fail in regular class 12 boards or get compartment in one or more subjects they choose to go for open school to clear their 12 boards. So it will be not be justified if they are denied the opportunity to sit in NEET,” the official said.

According to govt estimates, about 2 lakh students are enrolled with NIOS every year and over 3,000 of them had appeared for NEET last year. Some 2,000 students enrolled in various other open schools had also written the test.

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