Sources said the new testing agency has already initiated a blueprint to deploy modern tools like artificial intelligence, psychometric analysis and computer-based adaptive testing for screening candidates during the examinations which are set to be conducted in an all-new online format from next year.
Not only this, several other new rules are also on the anvil, informed sources. For example, students will be allowed to choose their own exam dates. During the examination, candidates will be able to review or revisit questions later, once they have completed the easier ones. In case the candidate is unhappy with the scores, he/she can retake the exams again after three months.
Experts believe that the move to introduce new format is aimed at improving efficiency, transparency and help honest students who have better grasp on the subject rather than those who depend on rote learning.
The question papers would be designed in a manner that the computer algorithm would throw random questions to students instead of particular question sets.
Similarly, highest level of encryption will be done so that the question database would be near-impossible to hack which also essentially makes the examination safer and it would reduce malpractice, said former Director of Rourkela NIT, Sunil Sarangi.
“The agency would definitely have a huge database of questions so that the computer software can have options to prepare a balanced question set with high and low difficulty levels,” he said.
“But my only concern is that from now on the government should be prepared to bring in all the competitive examinations like JEE Advanced and JEE Mains under one roof," Sarangi said.
Odisha Private Engineering College Association and students have welcomed the move to introduce the new format.
“The exams will be more secure and at par with international norms. There will be no issues of leakages and it would be more student-friendly, open, and scientific,” OPECA Secretary, Binod Das said.
"As students we think that the new decision will greatly benefit us because of its flexibility. We can appear the exam for the second time in a single year, if by any chance we miss the exam in the first place," said a student.
It is to be noted that earlier this month, Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar announced that in place of the CBSE, now the NTA will conduct major engineering and medical examinations from next year. The testing agency will conduct the UGC-NET in December. Similarly, JEE (Mains) will be held twice a year, in January and April and NEET would be conducted in February and May every year by the testing agency.
A bench comprising justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Ashok Bhushan issued notices to the Centre, the CBSE and the Kerala government on the plea by a group of 170 medical aspirants and posted the matter for hearing on July 10.
The group of aspirants have challenged the Delhi High Court's May 11 judgement dismissing the pleas challenging the MCI notification laying down the upper age limit of 25 and 30 years for general and reserved categories respectively to apply for NEET for MBBS and BDS courses.
However, the high court had struck down a clause in the notification which bars students from the open schools or those who have studied privately from appearing in the test.
During the brief hearing today, the counsel appearing for the students told the apex court that the limitation of 25 years was "completely arbitrary".
According to the January 22 notification, candidates who have studied in open school, students who have had biology or biotechnology as an additional subject and those who have taken more than two years to complete their 11th and 12th and students who have studied privately were not eligible to apply for the examination.
The High Court, while passing its interim order earlier on February 28, had made it clear that while the candidates will be allowed to submit their application for the entrance test, it does not mean they can sit for the examination which was held on May 6.
The High Court's verdict had come on several petitions moved by medical aspirants who were aggrieved by several other eligibility norms barring them from applying for the NEET-UG for which the last date for submission of application was March 9.
As per sources, the arrested identified as a Ramesh Kumar from Dunguri village in Rajasthan smartly went to Rourkela DAV Public School to appear for a student of Odisha.
However, the school authorities, while collecting signatures from all the examinees who had come to appear the entrance test, smelled something fishy and caught hold of him.
After his identity was revealed, the authorities informed Udit Nagar police who reached the examination centre and arrested the accused.
Meanwhile, police suspect a big racket behind the incident and have begun investigation to bust it and arrest those involved in such cases. "When the examinee was asked to put signatures during examination, he was unsure and hesitant to put as he was appearing for another student. That created a doubt in the minds of the invigilators and when they asked him his name, he said he is Ramesh. We have registered a case (Case No-102) against the accused under Sections 419, 109 and 34 of IPC. Further investigation is on," said Dibyakanti Lakra, Uditnagar IIC, Rourkela.
The NEET-UG is an entrance examination in India, for students who wish to study any graduate medical course, dental course or postgraduate course in government or private medical colleges in India.
Over 40,000 students from Odisha appeared for the NEET (UG) 2018, the premier entrance examination conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education.
NEET 2018 was held at 40 centres across the State while throughout the country more than 13, 26,000 registered students appeared the medical entrance, as per the official sources.
The test consisted of one paper in Hindi, English, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada containing 180 objective type questions from Physics, Chemistry and Biology (Botany and Zoology).
NEET 2018 will be held at 40 centres across the State while throughout the country more than 13, 26,000 registered students are likely to appear the medical entrance, as per the official sources.
The test consists of one paper in Hindi, English, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Odia, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada containing 180 objective type questions from physics, chemistry and biology (botany and zoology).
Some important instructions and reminders for students:
The duration of test would be three hours from 10 am to 1 pm. While examination hall entry began from 7.30 am and admit card checking will be done till 9.40 am.
As per instructions, the students have been advised to carry admit cards while stationery items like textual material, electronic gadgets, pen, scale, writing pad, pen are also not allowed.
The CBSE has also asked the students to adhere to dress code - light clothes with half sleeves. Male candidates should avoid dresses with big pockets, elaborate embroidery. Shoes are not allowed therefore male candidates can wear slippers and sandals.
Female candidates should also avoid clothes which have embroidery, flowers, brooches and buttons. Salwars and trousers are allowed along with slippers or sandals with low heels. Jewellery like earrings, ring, pendants, nose ring, necklace or any kind of metallic items are also forbidden.
The results of the entrance will be declared on June 5.
The board has advised candidates to wear "light-coloured half-sleeved dress" and "not to wear shoes" while issuing admit cards, reported The Times of India.
Candidates are prohibited from wearing anything with big buttons, brooch/badge, flower etc and are allowed to wear only slippers or sandals with low heels and not shoes. Female candidates have been asked to refrain from wearing any close toed footwear.
Candidates appearing at the examination centre in customary dress (e.g burqa) would need to report at least an hour before the last reporting time i.e. 9:30 am so that they could be inspected properly.
The NEET exam has been scheduled to be held on May 6, from 10am to 1pm. In a statement, CBSE said, “The schedule will remain unaltered even if the date of the test is declared a public holiday."
According to an Indian Express report, candidates are not allowed to carry items like belt, wallet, handbags, googles, watch/wristwatch, bracelet, camera or metallic item and jewellery items like a ring, earrings, nose-pin, chain/necklace, pendants, badge and brooch etc
The under graduate level national level medical entrance examination is scheduled to be held on May 6.
As per the NEET 2018 information bulletin, the Board will provide the facility to download admit cards of the NEET exam on the official website: cbseneet.nic.in.
NOTE: CBSE will not send the admit cards by post. So, once the Board releases the admit card, candidates will have to download it from the official website.
The Admit Card will have Roll Number, Name, Father's Name, Category, Sub-Category, Photograph, Signature, Date of Birth, Language of Question Paper with Name and Address of examination centre allotted.
Candidate will have to produce the admit card on demand for admission in the examination hall.
The notification and online application forms for the examination are likely to be released in January though no official notice has been published yet.
As per the recent report by a leading English daily, the NEET 2018 will be held on May 10 and admission to deemed universities will begin from July 10. Sources said the Medical Council of India (MCI) will complete the admission process for the medical and dental courses by August 18.
Last year, the entrance examination was held on May 7, 2017 though controversies like dress code row and anti-NEET protest in Tamil Nadu had marred the national level entrance examination. Out of the 10,90,085 students who had appeared in the NEET exam, 6,11,539 passed the examination.
How to apply for CBSE NEET 2018
Aspirants will have to apply for the national eligibility cum entrance test through online application forms. The application forms would be made available on the official website cbseneet.nic.in. No offline or paper and pen applications will be accepted by the CBSE.
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Age limit
In 2017, the CBSE had put a lower and upper age limit of 17 years and 25 years, respectively, for appearing in NEET examination. After Supreme Court's intervention, CBSE had rolled back the upper age limit criteria for NEET 2017 examination. Though there is no clarity on whether the board would include an upper age limit criteria for the test yet, the lower age limit, however, is expected to remain unchanged.
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Is there a limit to the number of attempts for CBSE NEET 2018?
As per NEET 2017 notification released by CBSE, the number of attempts for NEET was capped at three. However, the NEET 2017 would be considered as the first attempt for all candidates. The rule is expected to stay for NEET 2018 as well.
Is Aadhaar Card mandatory for applying for CBSE NEET 2018?
Since the CBSE has made Aadhaar card mandatory for all examinations conducted by the board, Aadhaar is most likely to be mandatory for CBSE NEET 2018 as well. All candidates are suggested to apply for Aadhaar card if they don't have one yet.
The owners of Delhi-based Akruti Education, Ashwani Tomar and Arti Tomar, along with Mohit Kumar, a tout from Uttar Pradesh, and Manoj Sikka, owner of a Punjab-based consultancy agency, were booked on charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday filed an FIR against the four and some unidentified persons following a complaint by Director NEET, CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) Sanyam Bhardwaj on Sunday.
Kumar is accused of acting as the tout for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) exam by promising to secure admission in government and private colleges across India, the FIR said.
The four were accused of helping the candidates to qualify the NEET exam.
More than 13 lakh candidates attempted the NEET undergraduate (UG) 2018 exam held on Sunday.
The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had on July 10, while hearing the petitioner of senior CPI (M) leader and Rajya Sabha MP T K Rangarajan on the issue, ordered the CBSE to grant 196 marks saying that the key words in Tamil questions for the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET) were wrongly translated from English causing confusion among the students.
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There were 180 questions carrying 720 marks in total in the NEET.
The NEET exam is conducted for admissions to MBBS/BDS courses in colleges run with the approval of Medical Council of India/Dental Council of India under the Health Ministry.
The CBSE conducted the NEET on May 6 in 136 cities in 11 languages, the results of which were announced on June 4.
In Tamil Nadu, about 1.07 lakh candidates took the test across 170 centres in 10 cities.
First Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose posted it for hearing tomorrow before a bench headed by Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh after a mention was made for taking up the matter urgently.
Petitioner S Kalimuthu Mylavan, an advocate, submitted that candidates who applied from Tamil Nadu were allotted NEET examination centres in other states and not according to their choice within the state as mentioned in their applications.
The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) is scheduled to be held across the country on May 6.
Stating that at the time of applying, candidates are required to prefer three examination centres of their choice, the petitioner submitted most of them had chosen three centre situated nearby in their respective states.
The petitioner further said candidates from southern districts of the state had been allotted centres in neighbouring Kerala.
He contended that most of the candidates who had applied were from rural areas and from poor families and may not be able to afford to spend for their stay in other states.
He prayed the court to quash the April 18 public notice issued by Central Board of Secondary Education, which conducts NEET, and for subsequent direction to re-allot examination centres for candidates from Tamil Nadu to those nearest to their residences within Tamil Nadu.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra directed the central board to upload the directive on their website.
Earlier in the day, UIDAI had told the apex court that it has not authorised CBSE to mandatorily take the Aadhaar number of students to get them enrolled for appearing in the NEET 2018 examination.
Attorney-General K K Venugopal had said that he had instructions from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) that like in Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Assam other identity proofs like passport, voter card and ration card can be used by the CBSE for enrolling students in the examination.
The UIDAI’s remarks came on a plea challenging the decision of CBSE seeking mandatory Aadhaar number or Aadhaar enrollment number from students who are aspiring to take the NEET 2018 examination. The Gujarat High Court had dismissed the plea on February 27.
In a latest development, NTA will conduct, inter-alia, JEE (MAIN) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-UG twice a year in order to give adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best.
All the entrance examinations will be computer based, for which a network of test practice centres, especially for the aspirants from rural areas will be established so that they have ample opportunity to acquaint themselves with the computer based tests.
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The Schools and engineering colleges with computer labs will be identified for this purpose, which can be used by any aspirant free of charge.
Extensive consultations were done with the concerned Ministries/ Departments of the Government of India as well as other stakeholders both from Central and State Government in a workshop held on September 1, 2017. Final decision and time table will be announced soon, sources said.
The National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) is conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education for admission to MBBS/BDS courses.
Javadekar was responding to an issue raised by AIADMK member Vijila Sathyananth regarding inaccurate translation of NEET questions in Tamil and the problems faced by students during Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha.
She said 49 questions in the paper translated in Tamil were vague due to problems in translation and students suffered.
A PIL was filed in this regard and the court awarded grace marks to affected students, she said.
Javadekar said as the matter was in court, he won't speak much on the issue. He, however said the translators were provided by the Tamil Nadu government.
The Minister further said that from the next year, the Centre would be taking affidavit from state governments that the translation done by their language experts was correct.
The AIADMK member had also pointed out that students appearing for the NEET exam had to travel to distant places to write the paper.
To this, Javadekar said he has already ordered that from the next year there would be no displacement of students.
As another member wanted to speak on the issue, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said the minister has assured the House that students need not go to other states and will have facility to write exam in their respective places.
The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had on July 10 ordered the CBSE to grant 196 marks--4 marks each for 49 erroneous questions--in the Tamil version of the National Entrance-cum-Eligibility Test (NEET).
The petitioner, senior CPI(M) leader and Rajya Sabha MP T K Rangarajan, had sought full marks for the 49 questions, saying key words in Tamil questions were wrongly translated from English which caused confusion among students.
There were 180 questions carrying 720 marks in total in the NEET.
"CBSE is contemplating to move the higher court, but a final call will be taken after holding consultations with various stakeholders and seeking legal opinion," a source in the ministry said.
Another source said senior officials from both CBSE and the ministry were holding consultations in the matter.
However, a senior health ministry official said they have not been approached by the CBSE and that the "body is free to decide on the future course of action".
The information bulletin of NEET exam had said that "candidates opting for regional languages would be provided bilingual test booklets in selected regional languages and in English. In case of any ambiguity in translation of any of the questions, its English version shall be treated as final".
Sources said the CBSE could highlight this aspect while challenging the high court order.
The NEET exam is conducted for admissions to MBBS/BDS courses in colleges run with the approval of Medical Council of India/Dental Council of India under the Health Ministry.
The CBSE conducted the NEET on May 6 in 136 cities in 11 languages, the results of which were announced on June 4.
In Tamil Nadu, about 1.07 lakh candidates took the test across 170 centres in 10 cities.
Passing the orders, the high court had directed CBSE to consequently revise the list of eligible candidates and publish it afresh.
The judges said the students who took the NEET for admission to medical and dental colleges in Tamil should be suitably compensated to provide a level-playing ground.