Indian students who want to study medicine in a foreign country will now have to compulsorily qualify the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).
“Indian citizens/overseas citizen of India intending to obtain primary medical qualification from any medical institution outside India, on or after May 2018, shall have to mandatorily qualify the NEET for admission to MBBS course abroad,” according to a Health Ministry release issued on Tuesday.
So far only students who wished to study MBBS in India had to clear the common NEET.
“It has come to notice that medical institutions/universities of foreign countries admit Indian students without proper assessment or screening of the students’ academic ability to cope up with medical education with the result that many students fail to qualify the screening test,” the release added.
The Medical Council of India had thus proposed to the Health Ministry that the Screening Test Regulations, 2002, should be amended making it mandatory for candidates to qualify NEET to pursue foreign medical course that have been approved by the ministry.
“The result of NEET shall be deemed to be treated as the eligibility certificate for such persons, provided that such persons fulfils the eligibility criteria for admission to the MBBS course prescribed in the Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997,” the release said.