Prof. Durgesh Mangeshkar

WHAT HAPPENED ?   In 2010, the Board of Governors of Medical Council of India (MCI) proposed that a Single National Medical Entrance exam called NEET for all Medical colleges in India must be implemented across the nation. However, the decision was challenged by Private Medical colleges by filing over a 100 petitions in various High Courts of the country. The matter was combined into one unified petition and was adjudicated by the Supreme Court in July 2013. The NEET exam was struck down by the Supreme Court on July 28, 2013 in a 2:1 split judgement citing the reason that though NEET was good in intent, the MCI constitution did not empower it to conduct Entrance exams. Hence, NEET was not conducted in 2014 and 2015 and admissions to Medical colleges were done on the basis of various CETs and AIPMT exam.   However in a dramatic turn of events, the NEET was reinstated by a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Dave on April 11, 2016. The Supreme Court ...

The recent NEET controversy has triggered an extremely important nation-wide discussion on syllabus differences between several Boards and the urgent need to uniform the syllabus of all different Boards of the nation. There are 27 different Boards in India today for higher secondary courses and each Board has a different syllabus, text book and exam system.     The subject of Education is in the Concurrent List and hence both the Union Government and State Government are stakeholders in framing various policies pertaining to Education sector. Due to the advent of Entrance Exams for professional courses made compulsory by a Supreme Court ruling of October 2004, various Common Entrance Tests (CETs) at State and National level started for all professional courses in India.   In the past 5 years however, there have been attempts made by the Union Government to replace multiple CETs for one professional course by a Single National Entrance Exam. The recent case of N...

The Entrance Exams to several professional courses like Engineering, Medicine, Architecture, Pharmacy, Pure Sciences etc. has Physics as one of the subjects. Physics is the foundation for learning almost all of Engineering and hence is an extremely important subject of Science. However, most aspirants of these Entrance exams struggle in studying Physics and find it tough. The least average marks in MHT-CET exam every year is in the subject of Physics. There are many reasons why Physics appears difficult to students and there are methods by which Physics can be made easy to learn. This article attempts to give an efficient approach to study Physics with ease.   1.  The first thing that must be appreciated about Physics is that it is a conceptual subject and solving problems in Physics means learning to apply the right concepts in an appropriate manner. Students struggle in Physics as they do not grasp the concepts in a systematic and rigorous manner.   2.  T...

One of the most critical and often neglected areas which hugely influence the Medical sector in any nation is the criterion for selection of candidates to pursue Medical education. In India, this criterion is in the form of Medical Entrance exams after Std.12 for admission to undergraduate courses towards MBBS / BHMS / BAMS / BDS degrees in about 381 Medical colleges which is the highest number of Medical colleges in the world. There are about 64000 Medical seats of which about 25000 seats are in Government Medical colleges. About 8 Lakh Medical aspirants vie for these 64000 seats every year and thus the average selection ratio is 1:13. There are more than 50 undergraduate Medical Entrance exams conducted by various State Governments, groups of private colleges and various agencies to these 381 Medical colleges due to which students and parents get confused and harassed to write so many exams. It has been observed that due to clash of dates and geographical distances and costs in...

In the past 15 years, there are major changes every 2-years or so in the Engineering Entrance Exams scenario at State and National level. There are about 3500 Engineering colleges in India having about 18 lakh seats of which about 350 Engineering colleges and 1.5 lakh seats are available in Maharashtra alone. Every year, about 8 lakh seats remain vacant in India of which about 50000 seats remain vacant in Maharashtra alone !   It must be noted that hardly 60000 seats belong to A-grade Engineering colleges across India. The constant changes in admission rules create confusion in the minds of students, parents and teachers. This article attempts to lend clarity to the admissions criteria for different Engineering colleges for the year 2016.   1) IITs : Admission to the IITs is on the basis of JEE ADVANCED All India Ranks only. Additionally, the student must score atleast 75% marks Aggregate of 5 subjects in XII Boards as eligibility criteria for admission to the IITs. II...

The admission to the 30 NITs, 4 IIITs, DA-IICT and 15% All India quota to all the unaided and aided Engineering colleges in different States (like VJTI, MIT, VIT, ICT etc.) is on the basis of JEE MAINS exam. The JEE from 2013-16 is being conducted in 2 stages viz. JEE MAINS in April and JEE ADVANCED in May. About 13 lac students across India appear for the JEE MAINS of which 2 lac students are selected for JEE ADVANCED. The admission to the 19 IITs is based on the JEE ADVANCED. In Maharashtra, there are about 2.5 lac students who appear for various Engineering Entrance Exams like MHT-CET, JEE etc. of which only about 15000 students consciously prepare for JEE. The rest prepare only for XII Boards and MHT-CET exam. Thus, barely 6% of Engineering aspirants in Maharashtra prepare for JEE as against 75% in Andhra Pradesh and 90% in Delhi & Kota. Despite this, Maharashtra ranked No.3 in India in 2015 after Andhra Pradesh & Rajasthan in number of IIT Ranks produced State-wise. Th...

The MHT-CET for Engineering has been reintroduced from 2016 by the Govt. of Maharashtra after it was cancelled in 2014 & 2015. The MHT-CET is an Entrance exam in Maths, Physics & Chemistry for admission into the 4-years B.E. and B.Tech. Courses of all the 350+ engineering colleges in Maharashtra via the 65% State quota. The MHT-CET was first introduced hurriedly within 50 days in Maharashtra State in June 2004 following a shocking Supreme Court Ruling in April 2004. The introduction of MHT-CET replaced the importance given to XII Boards for admission to Engineering colleges from 2005-2013.   The same system is now being implemented from 2016 onwards.   There are about 2.4 lac Engineering aspirants in Maharashtra to about 1.5 lac Engineering seats in 350+ Engineering colleges of which about 50000 seats remain vacant each year. It must be understood that out of these 350+ Engineering colleges in Maharashtra, hardly 50 colleges may be considered as A-grade co...