BENGALURU: The Common Entrance Test (CET) will no longer be the gateway for admission to medical and dental courses in Karnataka from next year. Medical and dental aspirants in the State will now have to write the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) from the 2017-18 academic year onwards as per the State government’s announcement. This ends confusion on whether CET will be conducted next year too.
NEET is a single national entrance test for admission to medical colleges across India.
The notification of the Karnataka Examination Authority on its website says that as per the Supreme Court order and the Centre’s ordinance, the CBSE Board will conduct NEET. Till now, KEA had been conducting entrance examinations for various professional courses like MBBS/BDS/Bv.Sc/BE/Farm Science, ISHM and Pharma courses.
Candidates willing to take admission for medical and dental courses must necessarily qualify in the NEET examination, the notification says.
Since NEET will be conducted for the first time in Karnataka for government-shared seats, KEA put up information on its website on the question pattern, eligibility criteria, how to register for NEET, syllabus and also uploaded the NEET 2016 question paper.
As the State has agreed for NEET, the seats in government colleges and government quota seats in private colleges will be filled through NEET scores.