PUNE: State minister for medical education Girish Mahajan has written a letter to Union health minister J P Nadda requesting him to include Urdu as a medium of taking the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET)-2017.
As many as 168 Urdu-medium science junior colleges are running in the state, accounting for about 11,000 students appearing for standard XII exam every year, Mahajan stated in the letter. "Considering the large number of students from Urdu-medium appearing for NEET, it is necessary that the test be conducted in Urdu language too," the letter, dated January 4, stated.
MUMBAI: NEET 2017 for admissions to undergraduate courses in medical and dental colleges will be held on May 7. CBSE, which is expecting about 10 lakh students to appear for the test this year, released the notification on Tuesday. The test will be conducted across 80 cities. While the test will be conducted in two more languages - Oriya and Kannada - Urdu is not included in the notification. Earlier, the exam was to be conducted in eight languages including Hindi, English and Marathi. The Students' Islamic Organisation (SIO) of India has decided to move Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking inclusion of Urdu in NEET 2017.
"There are about 168 schools in Maharashtra alone. There will be students from other states too whose first language could be Urdu, how can they ignore such a large number of students," said Mohammad Ali, public relations secretary of SIO.
The registration process for NEET commenced on Tuesday and will go on till March 1. The upper age limit of the candidates has been fixed at 25 years of age and there will be only three attempts given to all students. Aadhar number is a pre-requisite for the registration process. More details on the registration process and the information brochure on NEET 2017 are available on www.cbseneet.nic.in . This is the first time that the CBSE Is conducting NEET for admissions to all UG seats in all colleges in the country.
