NRI students says 'NEET is Discriminatory'

The Medical Council of India (MCI) has implemented centralized National Eligibility cum Entrance test (NEET) for admissions to medical and Dental courses admission across the Country. The announcement was made in January by MCI to change the entrance test for medical courses, But for NRI students the test seems to be problem to get seats in medical courses in India.

For this reason, several US based Non-resident Indian (NRI) organizations have called the new medical entrance test in India as 'NEET is discriminatory to NRI students', and they have called for a hold to the changes in the medical entrance test for atleast two years.

Global Organization of People of Indian Origin in a press release said, "The new MCI entrance test for medical admission adopted by some state governments will hamper NRI students applying for MBBS/BDS admission in India because there are no test centres in USA, Europe and other countries with large NRI/PIO population. The Kerala government is the latest one to adopt MCI admission test for medical and dental admission,

Speaking that many Indian organizations including the Global Indian Diaspora Foundation, Federation of Kerala Association of North America (FOKANA) and Federation of Malayalee Association of America (FOMA) have already written to the central and state authorities to implement this new requirement for NRI students on a timely stage of two years and maintain status quo on admission of NRI students till then.

"The release said, adding that failing this, most NRI students would not be able to appear for this entrance examination,"

Around 2000 NRI students apply for MBBS and BDS admissions in India, every year and this year's NETE UG 2013 exam is scheduled for May 05, 2013.

The release sated that, "For lat 20 years, the admission process for NRI students was to get the equivalent certificate from the education Department of Indian Mission and the Association of Indian University,"

"With this certificate, Indian MBBS Colleges were able to give admissions to NRI students based on NRI quota," the release stated.

After announcement of NEET is the entrance test for medical courses admissions in India, NRI students says there is no time for prepare for exams in the current academic year.

Organizations stating that, "The US and European 12th grade classes and final exams are scheduled at the same time period as the MCI medical entrance exam. Therefore, NRI students are unable to take time off from their school as it is mandatory to attend the classes ion order for them to get their high School diploma/ certificate,"