THE NExT PROBLEM

Since announcing the introduction of the National Exit Test and saying it will be held in 2023, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has kept mum about it, causing widespread confusion.

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

Final-year students and teachers across the country’s medical colleges are confused. In 2020, the government introduced the National Exit Test (NExT) to medical education. It is to be a common final-year exit test, compulsory for securing a license to practice. In a July 2021 notification, the medical education regulator, NMC, said that the test would be conducted in the first half of 2023 and that there would be a mock test before it to get students used to the pattern.

Since July last year, colleges have heard nothing further about it.

“We are not sure if NexT exam is happening in 2023 There is no proper notification. We are going ahead with the conventional professional exam pattern,” said Seema Mondal, professor, ESI Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal who teaches undergraduate students.

The NMC replaced the Medical Council of India in 2019; the law passed to set it up provides for the NExT. Once implemented, NExT will serve both as a licensing exam for graduating students and an entrance exam for postgraduate programmes in medicine. Graduating students will get their degrees only once they clear the NExT. It will also serve as a licensing exam for students who have earned their undergraduate medical degrees abroad, replacing the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE).

NEXT Pattern: The rumours

In the absence of an official timeline or guidelines, there are rumours, gossips and fleeting social media posts.