NMC plans to replace NEET PG with NExT, likely to begin from Dec 2023

NEET PG 2023 could be the very last edition of the National Eligibility Cumulative Entrance Test-Postgraduate. It may soon be replaced with National Exit Test (NExT) which will play multiple roles. As per officials, final-year MBBS students will now be admitted to PG medical programmes based on the results of NExT.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) is understood to have informed the Union Health Ministry in a high-level meeting held on Monday that it aims to hold NExT in December 2023, official sources stated on Wednesday.

MBBS students from the 2019–2020 batch will be required to take the test if it's held in December 2023. According to them, the exam's results will also be used for the 2024–2025 class's entrance to postgraduate medical programmes.

The NMC Act states that NExT will function as a common final-year MBBS qualifying exam, a license exam for the practise of contemporary medicine, a merit-based admissions exam for postgraduate



programmes, and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who wish to practise in India.

The administration extended the deadline for conducting NExT until September 2024 by invoking the pertinent NMC Act provisions in September.

The NMC Act became effective in September 2020 and the commission was required by law to perform a common undergraduate final-year medical examination known as NExT within three years of the act.

The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences may conduct the test in place of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, according to the sources, although no decision has been made in this regard.

Officials stated that in order to conduct NExT, preparations must be made, including developing the modalities, curriculum, type, and pattern of the exam. They also added that students must be given enough time to prepare. Before the main test, practise exams would also need to be administered.