NEET-UG exam to be switched from pen-and-paper to online mode? Check latest update here

Senior officials have told The Sunday Express that the Centre is thinking about offering the NEET-UG exam online starting in the following year, in response to the controversy surrounding the exam's integrity. This occurs at the same time that the exam is being negatively impacted by reports of alleged leaks that sparked nationwide demonstrations, over a dozen arrests, a CBI investigation, multiple court appearances, and currently a standoff in Parliament.
 
NEET is currently a yearly pen-and-paper multiple-choice exam where applicants must select an answer from the list of options and mark it on an optically scanned OMR sheet.
 
 The National Testing Agency (NTA), which administers the exam on behalf of the Health Ministry, has previously opposed calls to move NEET to an online format. For admission to engineering colleges and IITs, however, a computer-based exam similar to the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main or JEE Advanced is thought to be a feasible alternative. We have learned that during the past week, at least three high-level meetings were held to discuss this.
 
A seven-member panel led by former ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan was constituted by the Centre on June 22 in order to review the NTA's operations and make recommendations for changes to testing protocols and data security measures.
Coincidentally, former Education Minister Prakash Javadekar declared in 2018 that NEET would take place online in 2019 and twice a year. But when the Health Ministry took issue with the announcement made "without formal consultation," the Education Ministry was compelled to back down. The Health Ministry was worried that computer-based tests would disadvantage students from low-income and rural areas.
 
A senior government official responded, “There are many students from rural backgrounds who qualify take the JEE Main and qualify for JEE (Advanced), which are both computer-based tests. Then why should it be a problem for NEET aspirants from rural areas?”

The National Medical Commission, according to sources, will make the ultimate decision about moving to an online format. NMC sources confirmed that the online exam is a "serious option." According to sources, there are difficulties with the transition because a computer-based test requires "normalisation" because the paper will be published in multiple versions.
 
 A senior official said, “This year, 24 lakh candidates appeared for NEET-UG… If we move online, the exam will need to be conducted over multiple shifts and days. Approximately 1.5 lakh to 2 lakh candidates can appear in one shift in an online test…" , as reported by The Indian Express. 

The official added, “Therefore, to accommodate NEET numbers, we will need to have multiple shifts over different days – just as we do with the two cycles of JEE Main — and that means having different question papers. For results preparation, we will have to normalise marks to take care of any differences in the difficulty level of question papers. We’ve never had to do that for NEET in the past."

Its benefits, according to sources, are weighed in favour of a computer-based exam. There are currently two stages to the JEE: JEE Main, administered by the NTA, and JEE Advanced, administered by the IITs. This year, 8.22 lakh candidates applied for the JEE Main in both sessions, and 1.8 lakh candidates applied for the Advanced. The fact that JEE is now fully computer-based and that the IITs have "absolute control" over JEE Advanced are the two reasons professors who have taught JEE credit for its integrity.

 IIT professor who has headed this process in the past said, “The vulnerability of process is a function of the number of people involved in it. Greater the number of people involved, the more is the risk of system getting compromised. The IITs take great care to ensure fewer people are involved who work in small teams isolated from each other. Also, these people change every year," as per reports.
He said.“This used to happen even when JEE used to be a pen and paper exam. The papers used to be carried to the centres by three or four faculty members… Now it is a computer-based exam, so that takes care of a lot of vulnerabilities."