The Wrap: NEET PG dates, cut-offs; IIT Council-AAU deal; return of student elections

Latest Education News: If it wasn’t clear enough already, the exam to mark the end of MBBS, regulate admissions to postgraduate medical programmes and for award of licence to practise, the National Exit Test (NExT exam) is definitely not happening next year. As part of its draft regulations for postgraduate degrees in medicine, the National Medical Commission (NMC) shared a tentative schedule for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test – Postgraduate (NEET PG).

Originally set to be replaced by the NExT, NEET PG 2024 is now tentatively scheduled for March. Registration also began for the third round of NEET PG counselling but this time, there was furore with a doctors’ body demanding that the NEET PG cut-offs be reduced, not just for medicine but also dentistry (NEET MDS 2023) claiming that large numbers of seats were vacant in deemed-to-be and private universities. They even wrote to the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) which conducts the NEET PG and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) which oversees centralised counselling.

In other education news, The G20 meeting in Delhi disrupted work and education in Delhi and parts of the neighbouring states but it also yielded new agreements between India and the United States on collaborations on research centres, startups and more. Multiple Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) will collaborate with American universities; the IIT Council and the Association of American Universities signed an agreement to launch a Global Challenges Institute.

Candidates who wrote the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET 2023) conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) waited the entire week for the CTET answer keys without getting them. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided a host of spots in Uttar Pradesh including that of Bhagat Singh Students’ Morcha (BSM) a group whose members are students of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

It is also firmly student election season. The president post in the Panjab University Students’ Council was won by a member of the Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India (NSUI). The Delhi University Students’ Union elections are also this month. The polling date remains the same but the rest of the schedule for DUSU elections was changed slightly.

US President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Several new agreements were signed on collaborations in research and education (Image: Education ministry) Here’s everything that happened over the week.

Policy: Mid-day meal; NMC on MBBS, PG seat data; Karnataka SSLC, PUC

• Kerala general education minister K Sivankutty said the funding crisis in the mid-day meal scheme was brought on by the centre’s failure to pay its share of the midday meal funds; the centre countered saying it has released the funds which Kerala has failed to transfer to a common account along with its share.
• The National Medical Commission (NMC) has decreed that MBBS and PG seat data for NEET UG, PG counselling will henceforth be submitted by the state counselling committees and not the medical colleges directly. This could be because yet another fake permission letter emerged during the week.
• The University Grants Commission (UGC) issued the final UGG guidelines on the inclusion of differently-abled students in higher education. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan also launched the UGC’s Malviya Mission: Teacher Training Programme.
• Karnataka will hold board exams thrice for SSLC, PUC; cancels supplementary exams from this year itself.
• Tamil Nadu governor set up a panel to select vice-chancellors of state universities, including Madras University; the state government cries foul. A similar conflict has already flared up in West Bengal where the governor has appointed yet another VC amid the row.
• The Supreme Court gave Uttar Pradesh till September 15 to decide on approving 750 private technical colleges in the state.

College Admissions: CAT 2023 for non-engineers; NEET counselling

• Do engineers still dominate admissions to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) that admit through the Common Admission Test (CAT exam)? At six top IIMs – including IIM Ahmedabad – over 40% of the 2023-25 MBA batch is not from engineering.
• Medical College Admissions: Uttar Pradesh started registration for the UP NEET counselling mop-up round. Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Haryana started the round-3 of NEET UG counselling and Punjab closed registration for it the same week and Gujarat announced its schedule.
• Results of the first round of AYUSH NEET UG counselling 2023 is out as is the schedule for subsequent stages of the counselling process.
• Maharashtra announced the second selection list in NEET PG counselling. Candidates have till September 11 to report.
• Physical document verification for MTech applicants at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU Admission 2023) postponed to September 14 because of the G20 meet.
• BTech Admissions: Karnataka CET announced the KCET round-2 seat allotment result. The schedule for subsequent processes is also out; the deadline for UGCET choice-filling is today. Kerala is conducting KEAM 2023 spot admission for engineering, architecture on September 10. In Uttar Pradesh, the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (AKTU) will start the UPTAC counselling 2023 from September 16; this is for courses to which admission is through the Common University Entrance Test (CUET UG, PG) and not the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main.
• Registration began for the January and May sessions of Law School Admissions Test, LSAT India 2024. Application will be open for months.
• Registration began also for the IIT JAM 2024, the Joint Admission Test for Masters.
• The AP ICET 2023 counselling dates were announced and registration has begun. The exam and counselling are for admission to management programmes in Andhra Pradesh. The state also opened web options entry for postgraduate engineering programmes through AP PGECET Counselling 2023 and the process for admission to degree colleges.
• Delhi University opened ‘mid-entry registration’ for PG programmes. And DU also conducted registration for the second round of spot admissions.
• Allahabad University announced cut-offs for undergraduate admissions as well as the schedule.

College Education News: IIT Bombay placements; IIT Mandi director, new medical college

• IIT Bombay's final placement report for 2023 was published and according to it, the highest international salary was Rs 3.7 crore. Google Cloud India set up ‘Chair Professorship’ in generative AI at IIT Bombay. It’ll be called “Google Cloud Chair”. IIT Bombay also has big plans for its research park which, when it moves into its permanent premises, will host 80 companies, offer internships and aid research. As part of the deals emerging from the G20 meet, IIT Bombay also signed an agreement with University of Chicago to work on quantum research, science, technology.

• A viral video shows Laxmidhar Behera, director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi exhorting students to not eat meat because, apparently, that causes the landslides in Himachal Pradesh. Behera, according to earlier reports, also claimed to have successfully exorcised ghosts. The latest outrageous claims have drawn immense ridicule and criticism on social media and came on the heels of the IIT Mandi taking strict action against dozens of students for alleged ragging.

In the current dispensation, having views like those of the Director of IIT Mandi featured here is a feature, not a bug. It's simply sad. https://t.co/4auwFGeyU6

— Gautam Menon (@MenonBioPhysics) September 7, 2023

• Nagaland's first medical college has admitted 92 MBBS students so far and once fully operational, will start PG, DNB and nursing programmes, said its director.
• Delhi University will see the first DUSU elections since 2019; in it, the four-year undergraduate programme, hostels and college fees will be major poll issues.
• Punjab Agricultural University’s (PAU) honey bee facility was awarded by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).
• Gati Shakti University and Airbus signed an agreement; they will train students for the aviation sector.
• NMIMS University and Binghamton University will offer a joint engineering programme.

School Education News: Vedic Schools, board exam schedules

• The third residential Vedic School, Rashtriya Adarsh Veda Vidyalaya, will start soon in Gujarat’s Dwarka. It will be affiliated to the Vedic Board.
• Meghalaya Board announced the MBOSE Class 9 exam timetable.
• A 15 year-old boy was killed at school in Maharashtra by a javelin thrown by another boy in an accident.
• Tamil Literary Aptitude Test 2023 will be held on October 28. The government will select 1,500 Class 11 students who will get a monthly stipend of Rs 1,600 for two years.

Study Abroad: Overseas education fairs; Chevening and Commonwealth Scholarships

• From a family of Dalit daily-wagers, Vaibha Sonone has won both the Chevening Scholarship and Commonwealth Shared Scholarship, ultimately choosing the second for a masters at the University of Leeds.
• The French government is supporting the ‘Choose France Tour 2023’ across four cities in October.
• A study on California State University shows that a third of its 2021-22 graduates left with debt.
• University of Arizona offers ‘Global Wildcat Scholarships’ ranging from 5,000 to 23,000 USD for meritorious international students.

What’s scheduled for next week? Our calendar alert – ‘Heads-up’ – is on Instagram. Follow here to stay updated!