Where are the changes in NEET? Expert panel suggestions vs NMC decision for 2025

NEW DELHI: In a major update which may not sound so huge, the National Testing Agency (NTA) today announced that the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) 2025 will be conducted in offline mode. Despite an expert panel’s recommendations to hold the exam over multiple days and sessions, the National Medical Commission (NMC) decided to follow the old practice of holding the exam in a single shift on a single day.

NEET UG 2025 will be held for admission to undergraduate medical and dental programmes. The testing agency, which has been conducting the exam for six years now, came under fire last year over a huge controversy in the medical entrance exam. From the NEET UG paper leak to suspicious NEET UG results, the test brought widespread criticism at NTA’s door from students, academicians, and people in power. It was the same OMR-based single shift NEET exam .

What followed next was not one but many court cases, exam cancellation by the Supreme Court, revision of NEET results , sacking of NTA director, and constitution of a high-level committee by the education ministry.

Recently, the High-Level Committee Report went public, throwing light on the various recommendations of some of the brightest minds, former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairperson being the head, who went extra miles to bring reforms to the ways NTA functions and ease-it-out for the medical aspirants.

Contrary to the suggestions of the expert committee, NMC stood firm on the same-old NEET exam structure, apparently ignoring the proposed changes in NEET . And this comes despite the Centre assuring the apex court about implementing all the corrective measures.

While NEET UG 2025 exam date and NEET 2025 information bulletin are yet to be issued on the new NEET official website , neet.nta.nic.in, know how the latest announcement on NTA NEET differs from what the experts encouraged.

NEET UG 2025 stages

The seven-member committee thought it would be better to conduct NEET in two stages or more, just like the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main, giving more opportunities to students. However, there is no such announcement by the NTA.

NEET 2025 shifts

Since close to 24 lakh students write the NEET UG exam almost every year, the panel recommended dividing the exam into multiple days and sessions. In a clearly opposite move, NTA has announced a single day exam, and not even multiple shifts but one.

NEET UG 2025 mode

A computer-assisted pen-and-paper mode was the experts’ idea to help reduce paper leaks, however, the education ministry seems to have omitted the computer part from it. The NEET 2025 notification simply says the exam will be held in pen-and-paper mode.