The union HRD minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar gives an end to all the speculations that were made regarding the NEET exam recently. On 7^th July 2018, the union minister announced that from the next year onwards the National Eligibility cum Entrance Examination (NEET) will be conducted twice and that too by newly formed examination conducting body, National Testing Agency (NTA).

As per Mr. Javadekar, the candidates who will appear in two NEET exams next year will be able to use best of the two scores for the counselling process.

Important Announcements regarding NEET

There are some more important announcements that union has made regarding the NEET exam as given below:

• The syllabus, language, question formats and fees for NEET exam will remain the same.
• A student friendly, open, scientific and leak proof system will be adopted by the NTA to make NEET more secure and at par with the international norms.
• The Exam will be conducted in online (Computer based) mode and NTA will allow candidates to practice at computer centers from the end of August.
• The NEET exam will be held in a span of 4-5 days and the candidates will be allowed to choose the date of exam as per their preference.
• NEET exam will be conducted in the month of February and May 2019. The exact dates will be updated on the official website of NTA.
• It will not be mandatory for candidates to appear for NEET in both February and May.
• The psychometric methods and standardization techniques will be used to equate two tests. The best of equated scores will be considered for admissions.

National Testing Agency (NTA)

According to the union HRD minister, the NTA will be chaired by some of the reputed educationist appointed by the government. The director general of NTA will also be appointed by the union government.  With the establishment of National Testing Agency (NTA), Central Board of Secondary Education will be relieved from the responsibilities of organizing the NEET Exam.

This year, more than 13 Lakh candidates appeared for the NEET exam and some incidents of misconducts and malpractices were also reported.

With these announcements by MHRD, it is expected that the NEET exam will be far more secure and trustworthy in future.