New Delhi: With the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Central Board of Secondary Education declaring the cancellation of 10th and 12th standard board exams, the eyes are now on the fate of the NEET and JEE exams.
The campaign to get the board exams cancelled was a long one and now the students are stressed about the uncertainty surrounding the premier entrance exams.
Despite the NEET being conducted over the last couple of years, it has continued to remain in controversy. While some firmly believe that it should be cancelled, others see it’s cancellation as a gateway of it possibly being cancelled forever.
Tamil Nadu has been one of the most vocal states when it comes to anti- NEET campaigns. Over the years, activists, politicians, educationists alike have continued to consistently express their disapproval of the exam and criticised it of being exclusionary and discriminatory — especially to those from backward classes and rural areas.
Now that the board exams have been cancelled, activists are hoping NEET could be cancelled too, “Reports say 20 crore migrant workers went back home, now assuming that they are families of four, that would mean that 80 crore people are right not in grave distress because of the pandemic. About 500-600 have already died and this is not counting those that the pandemic has taken away. It is a man-made calamity, so this is not at all a period to consider exams or online classes, let alone something like NEET,” Prince Gajendra Babu, the General Secretary of the State Platform for Common School System, Tamil Nadu, expressed.
Dr C S Rex Sargunam, President of the Tamil Nadu Health Development Association (TNHDA) also says he wishes that NEET gets cancelled forever, “Not just this year, I hope it is forever cancelled. They definitely should cancel it this year, they cannot have an exam like this in a situation like ours. They can admit the students based on the 12th standard marks, as they have been doing all these years.”
Highly controversial?
Dr G R Ravindranath from the Doctors Association for Social Equality is also of the firm belief that the environment today is in no way conducive to hold NEET, “There has to be an exemption this year, each state should be allowed to allot on their own. Only for the All India Quota for central universities, the Centre has to develop some kind of mechanism to figure out those seats. But for the state seats, the state government should be allowed to carry on their procedure,” he said.
But this is not the first time that a medical year would be delayed, Sargunam says, “In the past, during the emergency, and also during the Indo-Pakistan war, the medical students were accepted in the October batch. Maybe the duration of the year has to be reduced but otherwise, it is okay for a year to be pushed by a little. We still don’t know when the world will be able to contain this disease.”
Could this mark the end of NEET?
The cancellation of NEET though, the activists think, could be a good enough premise to revisit the arguments made against it and by going back to the way that the seats were allocated prior to NEET, that is through the state government counselling, students from marginalised sections might have a greater hope of securing a seat.
Stressing on the importance of cancelling NEET, Babu said that even during the lockdown he saw several doctors in private hospitals going on leaves, “Before NEET, students from all backgrounds got a chance to study and so many students from rural areas go back to working in their hometowns mostly because they grew up with no proper medical facilities. And these are the students the NEET is denying a medical seat to”.
With all eyes pinned on the NEET and JEE exams, it will be fascinating to watch if they go the CBSE, ICSE way or disappoint anti NEET campaigners.
PNN/Agencies
