"Should Medical Entrance Exams Be Returned to States?"
NEET-UG
single national entrance exam for undergraduate medical and dental admissions in India
National Testing Agency (NTA)
autonomous body conducting NEET-UG, JEE Main and other exams, set up in 2017
Education is placed in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule, so both Parliament and state legislatures may legislate on it. This shared jurisdiction is the constitutional root of the NEET dispute. Before 2013, admission to medical colleges was governed by a patchwork of state-level and institution-specific entrance tests. The idea of one common all-India qualifying exam for medical admissions was first proposed in 2010 by the Medical Council of India, with the stated aim of easing the coaching and academic burden on students appearing for multiple state exams. The first National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) was conducted by the CBSE in 2013 under the then Congress-led government, but implementation stalled after legal challenges. It was revived and pursued through a long court battle up to the Supreme Court, and later given statutory backing through the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, which replaced the discredited Medical Council of India with the National Medical Commission and made NEET-UG the mandatory single gateway to undergraduate medical admissions across the country.
Two competing constitutional and policy arguments run through this debate. The first asks whether states, which co-legislate on education and also set up and regulate medical colleges within their territory, should retain the power to conduct their own admission tests. Tamil Nadu has been the most consistent voice for this position, and its assembly has repeatedly passed legislation seeking exemption from NEET, citing concerns that a single national test disadvantages students from state-board schooling and rural backgrounds. The second argument holds that a common minimum standard is necessary so that a medical degree from any state carries comparable rigour, given that healthcare is a matter of life and public trust regardless of where a doctor is trained. …
Consider the following statements about the National Testing Agency (NTA):
1.It was established in 2017 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education.
2.It conducts NEET-UG, JEE (Main), and UGC-NET among other examinations.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The National Medical Commission Act, 2019 is significant because it:
With reference to India's constitutional and legal framework on education, consider the following pairs:
1.Concurrent List — subject on which both Parliament and states can legislate
2.Article 21A — right to free and compulsory education for children aged 6-14
3.National Medical Commission Act, 2019 — mandates NEET-UG as the sole gateway to undergraduate medical admissions
4.Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 — regulates state-level school board examinations only
How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?
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