NEW DELHI: Come next academic session, students seeking to get into a medical school will have to appear for a Common Entrance Test (CET).

The Union health ministry and the Medical Council of India (MCI) have reached a consensus to roll out CET for admission to all government, private medical colleges and deemed universities for MBBS course from the 2012-13 academic session.

MCI officials confirmed this to TOI, saying the decision was taken in a meeting on Monday, chaired by Union health secretary K Chandramouli. The meeting was also attended by officials of MCI and CBSE.

About 8-10 lakh students are likely to appear for the maiden CET exam. Mr Chandramouli told TOI that they "are working out the modalities". In the meeting, there was also talk about bringing institutes like AIIMS under CET's ambit.

Hence, AIIMS won't be able to hold its own undergraduate entrance exam. "The top students can choose to join AIIMS. However, more discussions will be held on this matter. The idea is to have one single medical entrance exam in the country," an official said.

The new MCI governing board is taking a fresh look at the revised medical curriculum, prepared by its predecessors. "We will finalize India's revised medical education curriculum, and put it up on our website for public comments soon," an MCI governing body member told TOI.

Ministry sources said the entrance exam will be held for MBBS courses offered by all 271 medical colleges — 138 run by governments and 133 under private management.

These colleges offer over 31,000 MBBS seats. Now, about 17 entrance tests are held to fill 32, 000 UG seats in medical colleges across the country.

Source: Times of India

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