UAE students under pressure after India closes international centres for medical exam

For the last two years, Sherin Shafeeq's daughter has been preparing for a medical entrance exam in India by attending coaching classes, writing papers, and reviewing hours of material. As she readies to write the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG) this year, she has something else to worry about- she has to fly to India to write the exam.

This year, all international students writing the NEET-UG test in May must travel to India to do so. Sherin is one of the thousands of expats disturbed by the decisions of India's Ministry of Education (MoE) not to provide any international centres for their entrance exams for medical education.

"This is going to add unnecessary pressure on all the students," said Sherin Shafeeq, whose daughter Riya has been preparing for the exam for two years. "My daughter has been preparing for two years and is already under immense stress. She is now worried about writing the exam in an unfamiliar setting."

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In 2021, India first opened international centres for the NEET-UG exams- a prerequisite for all students to study medicine in India and some international countries. The move came after thousands of students could not travel to write the test during the Covid pandemic. It relieved parents who had been petitioning for centres outside India for years. However, this year, all international centres have been closed down. On the other hand, the number of centres in India has increased.

Last year, India's MoE set up the National Testing Agency (NTA) as an independent, autonomous, and self-sustained organisation to conduct the NEET-UG and other competitive exams.

Sherin feels this could be a reason for the change. "Even the coaching centres didn't get any intimation on this," she said. "They too realised this when our parents enquired about the exam centre. So this move may have been a decision by the NTA."

Parents scramble

Sherin says the move has left them in a lurch. "I have two younger children in Grade 8 and Grade 2," said Sherin. "They will still have school when Riya has to write her exam. So one of us parents will have to stay in the UAE to look after our other children while the other travels to India. Moreover, we must pay for the tickets back home and find accommodation near the centres. It is a layer of added stress to an already stressful situation."

Dubai resident Roshni agreed. "My son Ryan is in Grade 11 and has started preparing for the NEET-UG exams," she said. "When my daughter Fiza took the exam in 2018, she had to travel back to India, and it was very stressful. So we were relieved when the test centres opened in the UAE. But it seems that joy was short-lived."

A teacher at a local school, Roshni, said several of her students were also in a dilemma. "Many students had opted to write the exam from here and had made plans based on that," she said. "However, this last-minute change has put them all in a difficult position. Many of them will find it difficult to switch up their schedule."

Unexpected move

According to Alka Malik, Founder and Managing Director of coaching centre Ascentria, the move was sudden. "This definitely was not expected," she said. "We had been petitioning the Indian Embassy in the UAE for years to have a test centre in Dubai, and we finally had one just a couple of years ago. The removal of this International test centre came suddenly and was a complete shock."

She said that it would negatively impact students in many ways. "It is unsettling for students travelling for an exam to a relatively unfamiliar place, and it can affect the performance on the day," she said. "Even just a 1.5-hour time difference affects the sleep pattern, and students may not get enough sleep if they travel just before the exam. Some students unfortunately do not have any first-degree relatives in India and have to make plans to stay elsewhere."

She said the timing was also difficult. "Many students have entrance exams for other European colleges in Dubai soon after and will need to rush back to take those too," she said. "Working parents will have to apply for leave to accompany their children to India to write the exam. Families would have booked long overdue family holidays after the NEET exam out of Dubai, which will also be impacted."

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