BSc nursing entrance examination from next year

Thiruvananthapuram: For securing seats for BSc nursing, candidates will have to compulsorily clear an entrance examination, starting from next academic year (2024-25). The medical education director has started initiating procedures in this regard. The nursing college management associations have also expressed their willingness to admit students via conducting entrance examinations. Discussions regarding the same were held in a meeting convened by the health principal secretary. 

The national nursing council has been putting forth the demand for conducting entrance examinations since the last two years. The council had also informed the states that in the future it won’t be accepting the degrees of candidates who avail seats without writing the entrance examination. In response, since the last two years, the Kerala government had been telling the council that it has initiated procedures for conducting the examination, but to little effect. Tamil Nadu also failed to adhere to the council instructions. Meanwhile, Karnataka had partially conducted the examination this academic year.    

However, a final decision regarding the agency that would be conducting the proposed examination is yet to be taken. Initial reports suggest that the responsibility will be given to the state entrance examination commissionerate.

At present it is the LBS Centre for Science and Technology that prepares the nursing rank list based on plus two marks. The entire admissions to government colleges and 50pc admissions to the self financing colleges are done on the basis of the list prepared by the LBS centre.

The remaining half of the seats in the self-financial colleges are usually filled upon the discretion of the respective seat management associations.