The conundrum of National Exit Test in India

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Abstract National Exit Test (NExT) is a common medical licentiate examination and postgraduate (PG) examination about to be implemented in the country for the first time, so it is important to discuss the advantages, concerns and fear about the exam among the students. All these years’ medical qualifying exams were through descriptive theory and practical examination through Competency Based Medical Education (CBME) and separate PG entrance examination after internship. Standardizing the medical examination throughout the country will ensure uniform quality of medical graduates and by merging the qualifying examination and PG examination will narrow down the gap reducing the time taken for the each graduate to enter specialty are the main advantages of the NExT. There are various concerns about competitive part of NExT like CBME curriculum and the medical teachers training suitability for teaching PG competitive exams. Core competencies of the CBME curriculum focuses on ‘Must Know’ and the medical education emphasizes the teachers to educate the students on core competencies. For every advantage there are more concerns and fear about the NExT exam among the students. Like any exam NExT has its own merits and drawback when implemented for the first time, by identifying the concerns and correcting them will develop competent medical graduates uniform throughout the country.