MUMBAI: Tens of thousands of Indians who went to the United States to cash in on the health industry boom have been served a blow as the federal government has decided against allowing Indians to sit for the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE), a licentiate test without which students cannot practice in the US.
The decision was taken by the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy, a national body, reasoning that it found "systematic and methodical sharing and distribution of recalled questions by significant numbers of graduates of programmes in the affected countries as well as several exam preparation companies specifically targeted to these graduates". Apart from Indians, students from Pakistan, the Philippines and Egypt have also been barred from taking the exam.
