Puducherry Health Department to hold entrance exam in July for nursing college admissions

The Health Department is gearing up to conduct entrance examination for B.Sc Nursing after the Indian Nursing Council (INC) has directed the government to follow the guidelines issued by it for nursing admission this academic year.

The Health Department is gearing up to conduct an entrance examination for B.Sc Nursing after the Indian Nursing Council (INC) directed the government to follow the guidelines issued by it for nursing admissions this academic year.

The territorial administration had approached INC in April seeking permission to allow nursing admissions to be done on the basis of Class 12 marks for 2023-24 as was done in the previous academic years. However, the Council wrote back to the Health Department on June 8, asking the government to admit students based on the marks in a qualifying examination.

Lt Col Sarvjeet Kaur, Secretary, INC in a communication said “All the students of B.Sc (N) should be admitted only if they qualify in the entrance exam conducted by the State Government/University/State Common entrance cell.”

The council has made it clear that those admitted without going through the qualifying entrance examination process are liable to face problems during Reciprocal Registration, done by nurses when they move from one State Nursing Registration Council to another.

“As per the guidelines issued by INC, the entrance test should have been conducted by June 15. We were trying to continue with the old pattern but now the council has mandated us to hold an entrance test for nursing admission. Now, we have to adhere to the decision of INC otherwise students will face problems after they pass out. We have already started the process to conduct the entrance examination. We plan to hold the test sometime in July,” said a senior official.

There are 13 nursing Colleges in the UT offering a total of 970 seats. Of the colleges, only one, Mother Theresa Post Graduate Research Institute of Health Sciences is under the government sector. Eight are in the private sector and four others are deemed universities. The Mother Theresa Institute offers around 80 seats while the rest of seats remain with private colleges and deemed universities.