Medical Council of India had recently announced that there will be one Common Entrance Test (CET) from 2011 for admission to medical colleges in India for Under Graduate (MBBS) as well as Post Graduate (MD, MS) courses. The change has also been accepted by Health Ministry and has also been conveyed to the Supreme Court of India.
Let us look at the Advantages and Disadvantages of having a single All India Medical Entrance ExamAdvantage 1 - Before this declaration a student had to undergo the pressure of appearing in various entrance examinations where on an average each student appeared in almost 10 different entrance examinations to try his chances of getting admission into a good medical college. With this declaration many students must be relieved with the pressure of appearing into so many examinations in the future and can focus on their preparation and will be trying to give their best shot on one day.
Where many people are in favour of this decision taken by Medical Council of India, there are few who are against it as well. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reconsider the Centre’s decision on introducing a single Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to medical courses. According to him the move amounted to interfering with the rights of state governments.Advantage 2 – This decision will not only result in saving of the energy and the time of a student from appearing in so many examinations but also save the money of the students who earlier were supposed to spend money on filling the forms for various entrance examinations.
Advantage 3 – Few counselling dates and examination dates use to be on the same date but different places which made a student to choose between one of them and that made his chances of getting into a medical college low. With the declaration of this announcement by Medical Council of India a student will not have to choose between different exams or counselling because one All India CET (Common Entrance Test) will be all for every medical college.
This all has been possible because of a petition filed by Mr. Simran Jain in Supreme Court and the CET taken will be applicable in 138 Government Colleges and 133 Private Institutions. The total number of seats available for students in these institutions is 30000 for MBBS where the number of students appearing for the exam is approximately 6 lakh. The number of seats available for MD is 11000.
Advantage 4 – Conducting CET can also result in more clarity and transparency with the system and it gives a student an option of lodging RTI to have more clarity. CBSE will be conducting this examination on all India bases, earlier CBSE use to conduct 15% of the exam for medical entrance.
The dates for the exam and the dates for filing up the forms are not out yet.
Disadvantage 1 – Making one entrance exam for admission into medical college will build pressure on many students as they have only one chance of getting into a medical college. The pressure might lead to bad performance on the actual day of the exam. Whereas earlier even if a student of some reasons could not perform well in one exam he always had a second chance of performing well in other. This chance will no longer exist after declaration of this announcement.
Disadvantage 2 – Conducting and managing one exam at all India level might lead to errors and mismanagement on various parts and delay into the rank list resulting in delay in admission procedure. Hence to avoid this appropriate resources should be used.
Disadvantage 3 – Conducting CET will result in control of Central Government over the system and the State government will play minimum role in it. Giving the control at Central Level might not be beneficial for rural areas students of the state as state level quotas might be demolished or reduced.
