Students Pledge Date 28.06.2023 –
A webinar was conducted by the National Medical Commission (NMC) on 27 June 2023, where they
declared that the current final year batch (2019 batch) will have to sit for the National Exit Test (NExT
Step 1). On this occasion, Sourav Ghosh, the General Secretary of AIDSO has issued the following
statement:
“On 27 June 2023, the NMC has declared that the current final year batch has to sit for NExT Step 1
but they did not declare the date of the exam. It is obvious that, whatever may be the date, they will get
very little time for preparation in 6 clinical subjects and all other pre and para-clinical subjects. So the
students will face enormous pressure and will be forced to enter online coaching centres and clinical
classes will be jeopardised. Besides, a mock test has been arranged for one month from now, without
giving the students any scope to prepare for the exam. It will increase the pressure furthermore.
There will be two NExT exams in a year. NMC is going to scrap supplementary examinations. So, the
students who fail the NEXT step 1 have to wait for six months for the upcoming examination. So, more
academic days will be lost in the new system.
On one hand, the NMC is saying they will emphasize critical thinking, but they have increased the
percentage of recall-type questions from 10% to 15%.
The webinar did not spend a word about the proposal of averaging 3 scores for PG ranking and from
which exam PG ranking will be calculated.
So, it is very clear that NMC is utterly indifferent to the problems of the students, imposed anti-student
policies without providing any scope for discussion and also kept students in darkness serious points.
We vehemently protest this anti-student attitude of NMC and demand immediate withdrawal of the
decision to start the NExT Step 1 exam during the session. We call upon the students of the country to
build up mighty students’ movement against this undemocratic decision.”
