National Exit Test in 2024; AIIMS Delhi likely to conduct exam: Sources

NEW DELHI: The National Exit Test will be held next year and is likely to be conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here, official sources said on Thursday. According to the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act, the National Exit Test (NExT) will serve as a common qualifying final year MBBS exam, a licentiate exam to practice modern medicine and for merit-based admission to postgraduate courses and a screening exam for foreign medical graduates who want to practice in India.

The government had in September last year invoked the provisions of the NMC Act by which the time limit for conducting the NExT exam for the final year MBBS was extended till September 2024. Under the NMC Act, the Commission has to conduct a common final year undergraduate medical examination, NExT, as specified by regulations within three years of it coming into force. The Act came into force in September 2020. The timeline was extended last year, officials stated.

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According to the sources, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi may conduct the test instead of the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), but no decision has yet been taken in this regard. Conducting the NExT exam requires preparations such as working out the modalities and deciding on the syllabus, type and pattern of the examination, whether it will be an analytical or a multiple choice questions based test, and the number of tests and requisite regulations, among others, officials said, adding that students will also have to be given adequate time to prepare. Mock tests would need to be carried out before the main test is held.

The importance of the NExt exam lies in the fact that it will be the same for everyone, whether trained in India or any part of the world, and hence, it will solve the problem of foreign medical graduates (FMGs)/mutual recognition, officials said. As of now, final year MBBS examinations are conducted by respective colleges, while the NEET-PG and FMGE are conducted by NBE.