After a successful Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Kochi where speaker after speaker emphasized the importance of connecting the nextgen to India, a new Medical Council of India Fiat will now hamper NRI students applying for MBBS/BDS admission in India, it is felt. The major reasoning being the lack of no test centers abroad in countries with large NRI/PIO populations apart from the middle-east.
For the past 20 years, an equivalency certificate from the Indian Mission in their country and the Association of Indian Universities (a GOI body) sufficed for NRI aspirants to these courses in India. With this certificate, Indian Medical colleges were able to admit these aspirants under a NRI quota. This year though, the MCI has hosen to implement a centralized National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) for MBBS and BDS courses in the country, with the next test scheduled for May 5, 2013. So almost 2000 NRIs who apply every year for MBBS and BDS admissions will be unable to appear for this exam.
Many NRI/PIO community groups including them Global Indian Diaspora Foundation, Federation of Kerala Association of North America and the Federation of Malayalee Association of America (FOMA) have petitioned the central and state governments in India to waive this requirement and maintain status quo for NRIs at least for a couple years, citing the following reasons:
a) The new dispensation was made as recently as on January 2013, there is not enough time to prepare for the exam, or are there any exam preparation material or exam guidelines available yet.
b) Aspirants from the US, South America, Canada, Australia, Africa & Europe will face difficulty giving this exam unlike students in the Middle-East who so have access to exam-centers in Saudi and Dubai. Moreover, the US and European 12th grade final exams will clash with the MCI entrance test.
c) The exam curriculum for Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology is to be implemented on the same standard as for other national ligibility tests.
So a minimum of two-three years will be needed for NRI students to adapt to this common All India Entrance Exam for professional courses.