On June 27, the National Medical Commission (NMC) proposed that the final examinations for MBBS students, the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test for Postgraduate Medical courses (NEET-PG) and the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) would be replaced by the National Exit Test (NeXT).
The NMC made this announcement through a pan-India webinar attended by students and faculty of all medical institutions in the country. Further, the apex body for medical education regulation has confirmed that the 2019 batch of medical students in their final year would be the first batch to appear for the exam, which would be held in two phases or steps.
Following the webinar, the NMC also notified on June 28, that a NExT Mock Test would be conducted on July 28 – for which the registration is open till July 10. Students were also notified that the exams would be conducted in November and May and were given a tentative timetable for Set 1.
Even with the webinar, students were left with more questions than answers about the newly-announced exam. As a result, a few medical students have taken to social media and even started to organise protests to express their discontent with the announcement.
There is even a separate hashtag campaign on Twitter, #NONEXTFORBATCH19, which the medical students are using to express their grievances with the implementation process of the exam.
An air of confusion
As mentioned earlier, this announcement has generated a lot of confusion around the exam.
For starters, students have no clarity on when the exam would be conducted in the first place. “It was said in the webinar that NeXT would be conducted in two steps in November and May. Now, we do not know if Step 1 of the exam would be conducted in November this year, or May next year, as there is no clarity on that,” says Nirupama N, a final year MBBS student from Kottayam Medical College, Kerala.
Students say that they cannot even turn to their teachers for answers, as they too lack clarity on NExT. As a result, they are finding themselves utterly unprepared for the mock test.
Ajmia Rahim, a final-year student from Madurai Medical College, says, “There has been no clarity on the paper pattern or the syllabus of the mock test. All we know is that it would be a computer-based, multiple-choice question paper – which we have no experience attempting. We do not even have the time to prepare properly for the mock test nor is our syllabus completed; we are not ready at all.”
A few students even expressed shock at the fact that the registration fee for the mock test is Rs 2,000, which they feel is unreasonable.
However, a few, like E Fathima Sana, a final-year medical student from Kottayam Medical College, are optimistic about the mock test. “Attempting the mock test would give us some clarity about the paper pattern of the exam,” she says.
Not enough time for preparation
The general consensus among students is that irrespective of when the NeXT Step 1 would take place, they would not have enough time to prepare.
Nirupama says, “Every day, we are on our shift from the morning till 12 pm. After an hour’s break for lunch, we have classes till 4 pm – and we have to study and revise after going back to our hostels.” Fitting preparation for NExT within this schedule, that too at such short notice, would be extremely stressful for students, she says.
To make matters more complicated, the syllabus of the 2019 batch is vastly different from the tentative syllabus of NExT Step 1. Fathima says that the syllabus of the upcoming batch is more in line with NExT than that of the 2019 batch. “We are used to studying for and writing theory-based exams, and a lot of us spent a lot of money on textbooks with heavy theoretical knowledge. We are not used to assessing questions based on medical cases to attempt a multiple-choice question. Not only are we unprepared for this new pattern, but our preparation for theoretical exams all this while is of no use in the exam,” she adds.
Furthermore, students add that the proposed examination timetable for NExT Step 1 would also be extremely hectic. According to the timetable, exams for two subjects would be held in one day, with two and a half hours allotted for each subject. The exams would have one-hour breaks in between them. There would also be a one-day break between each examination day. Soon after NExT Step 1, students must also give the final year college practical/clinical exams, which would take place.
Clear communication needed
Students say that the only way the NMC could assuage their tensions is through communication and more clarity.
“Instead of a webinar, the NMC should have conducted in-person orientation sessions about the NExT exam at each medical college in India. They could have also released an official circular that would clearly mention the dates, syllabus, and marks weightage of topics in the NExT Step 1 paper,” says Fathima.
A better-planned and better-timed announcement would have also been more reasonable, students say.
“When we joined MBBS in 2019, there were talks about our final exam being different from that of our seniors. However, they made the announcement just a few months prior to our final exams. It is too sudden and abrupt,” says Nirupama.
Ajmia also concurs, saying that all these confusions could have been very well avoided if this information was not given to them at the last minute.
