Medical Council of India Introduce PG CET

At the beginning of the academic session of 2011, the Medical Council of India (MCI) is expected to introduce a Common Entrance Test (CET) for medical post graduate super specialty courses in government and private colleges. The super specialty course will have close to 3000 students and holding a CET is a possibility, according to the MCI. The MCI is expected to approach AIIMS or National Medical Board to hold the examination. A final decision in this regard will be taken on March 22 when the MCI Board members meet to review the situation.

This comes close to the decision by the MCI, who will most likely postpone the single national entrance tests for undergraduate and postgraduate levels in all categories of medical institutes to the next year even though the Supreme Court has given green signal for such a system. This is so because the medical education body is not prepared to execute the entrance exam for lakhs of undergraduate and post graduate students in a fair and transparent manner. The body maintains that it does not want to confuse the authorities as well as the students. At present, admission tests are conducted for nearly 32,000 undergraduate seats and 13,000 postgraduate seats in medical colleges across the country.

In the recent past, the MCI and the Health Ministry have been at loggerheads over the implementation of the CET for all state and national medical colleges. The Ministry maintains that all the States must be on-board before the new system is implemented, while the MCI is of the opinion that holding a single entrance test is ideal, saying that it would substantially reduce the stress level of the students, who, under the current system, have to sit for seven tests for getting admission in medical colleges.