It’s estimated that 6,000 dental students won’t be admitted to the PG program this year
More than 6,000 dental students from the 2018 batch will not be permitted to sit for the Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) exams in 2024–2025 because they will not have fulfilled the requirement of finishing the internship before taking the test. Their delayed completion of the internship is a result of COVID-19-related curricular interruptions.
The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) has extended the Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) 2024 internship completion date to June 30, at the latest. The delay, according to the dentistry students, is insufficient since many more students would still not be able to take the admission exam. The test will still take place on March 18 as planned; the date has not changed.
Students who had internships ending by March 31st were previously able to apply.
According to figures supplied by the student reps who claimed to get it from the Union Health Ministry, even after extending the deadline to June 30, approximately 6,000 students—nearly 50% of the dentistry students from the 2018 batch—would still be left out.
Based on information provided by the students, 13,281 dental students from the 2018 class are enrolled in internships, with their terms ending in various months. As of the most recent deadline, only 7,346 candidates are qualified to take the NEET-MDS exam. When March 31 was the cutoff date, this number was 6,266. This indicates that just 1,080 more candidates are now eligible for the admission test. There will still be 5,935 pupils unaccounted for, or 45% of the whole class of 2018.
Speaking about the matter, Secretary of the Dental Council of India Vikas Chawda acknowledged that the organization was unable to alleviate the situation for the majority of students by extending the deadline.
“We are aware that the most recent decision only covered 1,080 pupils, but we are unable to extend the deadline any further. Since the internship time for all dental students ends in December, the NEET MDS test would not be held this year if we were to make every student eligible, Chawra informed this publication.
In response to the students’ requests for a postponement of the entrance exam, he said that the Health Ministry is adamant about administering the test on time and that no more extensions of the exam date or cut-off relief are anticipated.
Medical groups said that the students’ professional years were jeopardized as they served their country during the COVID-19 pandemic, which ultimately caused delays in their internship completion. To enable every student to participate, they have pleaded with the government to postpone the NEET MDS.
Covid-19 interruption
A dental undergraduate must finish the required internship in accordance with the eligibility requirements before they may take the postgraduate test. Students from the 2018 cohort said that disturbances brought on by COVID-19 had an impact on their coursework. The administration responded by extending the deadline to June 30, but the test date of March 18 has not altered. More than 6,000 of them will still be unable to sit for the test.
