NEET is Flawed

The squashing of the Tamil Nadu government’s order providing space for State Board Students for Medical counselling is actually not surprising. Maybe the TN government was too optimistic hoping a repeat of last year when there was a relief.  Lacunae and structural problems are abounding in government policy. Understanding them is not difficult but proposing feasible and better solutions is an uphill task. At times, the solutions proposed are complex and give rise to more problems than the issue itself. The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the all India entrance examination for medical colleges causes more problems than it solves especially for UG.

Beating existing problems

NEET was primarily envisioned to tackle corruption in allocation of seats in private medical colleges. Private medical colleges which have their own quota of seats which are not filled with government counselling charge exorbitant money which is not tracked in official channels. Further candidates admitted through such processes could lack merit for the highly qualified profession which they are aspiring to. Weighed on this scale, NEET is an appreciable attempt. But suggesting that it is a silver bullet is willful blindness

Photo Courtesy: Dan Wiedbrauk

Flaws

If not for the complexity of the country, there would have been no place for federalism. Education was placed in the State List (which means only States could make laws) in the original Constitution and only later moved to the Concurrent list (where both the State and Centre could legislate, in the case of conflict the Centre law prevails). Each State has its own methodology of examinations and patterns for syllabus which is different qualitatively from hoisted by the Central Board. When an examination is conducted based on a syllabus which is followed by a minority of students compared to any State board in the country, one can understand who gets the benefit. To disregard and stamp a minority syllabus over a million students is not blindness but arrogance.

The fundamental flaw with entrance examinations is that they are elitist. Entrance examinations not just require knowledge but fine tuning your methodology of time management and constant practice. This is the primary reason you find coaching institutes for any entrance examination irrespective of domain. To provide an opportunity for rural and poor students who could not afford to coach, entrance exams were done away in Tamil Nadu. With NEET the demons return. Rural and poor students better give up their aspirations of joining a noble profession, well at least for the time being.

Change takes time

The problems posed by NEET may be solved one day. State syllabus revision committees will be set up. Maybe state governments will consider coaching students for the NEET exam as part of the curriculum. But whether it would completely eliminate the barrier posed by entrance examinations is a different question. A NEET exam for Post Graduation is acceptable as one who pursues MBBS will eventually come into the mainstream and will have many resources at his disposal to take it on. Talk about a 17-year old daughter/son of a marginal farmer and one gets a mental picture of the resources at her disposal.

After all, what can be expected from the Judiciary, when we don’t even know the criteria how the judges to the High Court and the Supreme Court are selected. Well, if you know what I mean? 

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Dan Wiedbrauk