NEW DELHI: Over 6,000 Dental students of the 2018 batch will be unable to take the Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) examinations for 2024-25 as they will fail to meet the criteria of completing the internship before appearing in the examination. The reason for lagging in completing the internship is disruptions in their curriculum due to COVID-19.
At the latest, the National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) extended the deadline for internship completion cut-off to June 30 for Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) 2024. The dental students said the extension is non-satisfactory as many students would remain ineligible to appear for the entrance test. The exam date has stayed the same and will be conducted on March 18, as scheduled.
Earlier, the students whose internships are getting over by March 31 were eligible to apply.
Even after extending the cut-off date to June 30, nearly 6,000 students would still be left out, which is close to 50 per cent of the dental students from the 2018 batch, according to estimates shared by the student representatives who claimed to receive it from the Union Health Ministry.
According to the data shared by the students, 13,281 dental students from the 2018 batch are under internship, with tenure getting over in different months. With the latest cut-off date, only 7,346 students would be eligible to sit in the NEET-MDS. Earlier, this figure was 6,266, with March 31 as the cut-off date, showing that only 1,080 more students now qualify for the entrance exam. About 5,935 students will still be left out who make up 45 per cent of the whole 2018 batch.
Commenting on the issue, the Dental Council of India’s Secretary Vikas Chawda admitted that the body could not provide relief to most students by extending the cut-off date.
“We know that only 1,080 students were included in the latest decision, but we cannot provide any further extension (to the cut-off date). If we were to make every student eligible, then the NEET MDS exam would not be conducted this year since the internship period for all dental students will be over only by December,” Chawra told this newspaper.
Over the demands of students to postpone the entrance exam, he said that the Health Ministry is firm on taking the test as per the schedule and no further extension on the cut-off relief or the exam date is expected.
Medical associations said the students served the nation during the COVID-19 compromising their professional years and ended up having delays in their internship completions. They have urged the government to postpone the NEET MDS so every student can appear.
Covid-19 disruption
According to the eligibility conditions, a dental undergraduate must complete the mandatory internship before appearing in the postgraduate examination. Students of the 2018 batch complained that their curriculum was affected by Covid-19-induced disruptions. In response, the government has extended the cut-off to June 30, but the exam date of March 18 remains unchanged. Over 6,000 of them will still be unable to take the examination.