MBBS graduates are protesting and have petitioned the Supreme Court to postpone NEET-PG for 2022 by six to ten weeks, claiming that the previous batch’s counselling procedure has either just ended or is still ongoing. The National Board of Examination (NBE), which administers the exam, has announced that it will be held on May 21 and has begun sending out admission cards.
Why do some doctors want the 2022 examination postponed after resorting to the streets to protest delays in NEET-PG counselling in 2021?
To qualify for post-graduate seats, MBBS graduates who have completed their year-long required internship must take the NEET-PG exam. The number of students that show up each year is approximately three to four times the 42,000 seats offered nationwide. As a result, many people wind up taking repeated attempts at the test.
Because to the Covid epidemic and lawsuit, the NEET-PG 2021 was badly delayed, and the counselling process only began in January of this year. What should have been completed in a few months is still ongoing, owing to litigation and administrative delays such as certain seats being assigned offline but showing up as empty for the following round of online counselling, and therefore being assigned to two people.
The counselling session is coming to an end. However, with only ten days until the next year’s exam, pupils claim they were unable to take a study break between the 2021 counselling procedure and the 2022 examination.
“In reality, the test date for 2022 clashes with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Mumbai’s counselling dates.” Some Rajasthani students may find it inconvenient. Plus, since the process has been delayed for so long and resident doctors are already overworked, another two weeks shouldn’t make a difference,” said Dr. Rohan Kishnan, president of the Federation of All India Medical Associations (FAIMA), one of the groups that went on strike last year to speed up NEET PG counselling.
At addition to their studies, post-graduate students serve as junior resident doctors in hospitals affiliated with medical institutions as part of their training.
Last year, there was a break in the academic calendar due to delays in administering tests and counselling. Following their final examinations, third-year post-graduates will begin working as senior residents. Second-year students will transfer to third-year classes, but those who were expected to be in second-year classes are only now enrolling in first-year classes. There would be a one-third manpower shortfall at medical college hospitals since resident doctors are the backbone of the services supplied.
Overworked resident physicians throughout India went on strike in December last year to speed up the counselling process due to this scarcity.
A big number of resident doctors who took part in the protest last year believe that any postponement will push the academic calendar back much farther. “Now that Covid-19 has ended, it’s time to realign the academic calendar.” Plus, what assurance is there that if the exam is delayed today, there won’t be a rise in Covid cases in ten weeks? “Last year, the test was put back when Covid cases weren’t as high, and then it continued being postponed due to Covid and court issues,” one resident doctor stated on the condition of anonymity.
Because the counselling procedure was not finished, the examination for 2022 was already pushed back from March to May this year.
