A 17-year-old student from Tamil Nadu, Anitha, has committed suicide for failing in the NEET and not making it to a medical college.
This has raised the need for looking into the objectives of the NEET that the country had adopted recently.
What did the NEET aim for?
There was a long felt need to have uniform criteria to judge students across the country in terms of eligibility for medical courses.
This is against the backdrop that medical seats were decided not on the basis of merit but by capitation fee.
The burgeoning private medical colleges and their intention to recover the investment made, reduced the quality of medical education.
Also, with rising inter-state competition, states were driven to give better marks to their own students.
The resultant loss of credibility for many state exams necessitated some national-level certification for school leavers.
The Medical Council of India, thus, amended norms to streamline the admission mechanism by replacing all existing processes by the NEET.
It proposed the noble intention of rewarding merit and creating a level-playing field for all students.
Is NEET meeting its objectives?
There are a number of factors which makes NEET fail on its purpose of providing a level playing field as it has introduced a range of new inequalities.
Firstly, it is based on the CBSE’s syllabus and thus discriminates against students from the state boards.
Neither being the biggest board nor being the best for science education, there is no rationale behind preferring CBSE over other boards.
This has ultimately devalued the worth of school board results.
Nextly, the merit rewarding which NEET aimed for has become a casualty in itself.
In the recent Anitha's case, her 98 % score in 12th standard has not helped her to get a medical seat as she got a low 12% in the NEET.
The gaps between school syllabi and the nature of NEET have introduced their own inequalities furthering discrimination and marginalisation.
Private coaching institutes are exploiting the situation and students from poor background become disadvantaged.
Also, there is a factor of language bias, as there are complaints that the level of questions in the English version was easier than in the vernacular versions.
What is the case with Tamil Nadu?
The education system of India has always been chaotic with presence of multiple syllabi and long felt need for levelling it.
In particular, education system like that of Tamil Nadu, based on rote learning i.e. mechanical memorisation of the subjects, is a major drawback.
Also, the school system is in the hands of big money, supported from behind by big politics.
The state has been trying by all means to get exception from NEET but has made little initiation in reforming the education system.
Politicians and political parties are largely playing identity politics and has long given false promises to students in the NEET issue.
What is the way forward?
Has Anitha failed in the NEET test or has the country failed with its NEET experiment is still to be answered.
A common entrance exam is indispensable to guarantee the supremacy of merit and work against corruption in medical admission.
But, essentially it has to be preceded by a uniform and quality education system.
Bringing parity in the testing system without the presence of parity in the school boards is a major flaw with the existent NEET system.
