Needless confusion over NEET

The uncertainty over writing the NEET (National Eligibility –cum-Entrance Test) is at last over for students from Tamil Nadu. Whoever wants to get into medical colleges for the next academic year has to write the NEET examination conducted by the Indian Medical  Council and the last date for applying to appear for the examination officially ended on March 1.  

The blame for the uncertainty caused to students (over their future) squarely lies with the politicians from the state and the so-called educationists. Compelled by the aftermath of the ‘Marina revolution’, the state government rushed with two legislations called as The Tamil Nadu Admission to MBBS and Dental Courses Act, 2017 and Tamil Nadu Admission to Postgraduate Courses in Medicine and Dentistry Act, 2017. As expected, there was no opposition in the Assembly since the move was to allegedly restore social justice for the Tamil Nadu students. The reason set out for bringing the state law was that, “The bulk of the students who would appear for the uniform entrance examination in the State of Tamil Nadu come from rural areas and facilities for them to access coaching classes to equip themselves for the said examination are not available due to non-availability of such coaching centres in their locality and also due to paucity of funds and economic conditions in which those students live.” 

Another justification was that, “The syllabus, methodology and the content of the uniform entrance examination is based on the syllabus prescribed for Higher Secondary Course of the Central Board of Secondary Education, which is different from the syllabus prescribed by the Board of Higher Secondary Examination, Tamil Nadu”. Due to these two reasons, it was stated that the state government has taken a policy decision to have their own admission procedure for the medical and dental colleges. 

It must be noted that a Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 2011 Regulations framed by the Indian Medical Council on May 2, 2016. There was noisy opposition from Tamil Nadu alone, to the uniform examination to be conducted for entry into medical colleges. Due to pressure exerted, the Centre had agreed to extend the imperative to conduct NEET examination for one more year, and for this purpose brought an ordinance followed by an Act in the year 2016. The Act while granting extension of time by one more year for the states which are having their own admission procedure, at the same time added a new section, 10-D into the Medical Council Act. By this amendment, the conducting of NEET examination by the IMC has become a central law and the only option given was that the examination can be conducted in English and other languages decided by the IMC. What was originally a regulation framed by the IMC has now become the subject matter of a central law.  

The central government has announced that the NEET examinations will be conducted not only in English and Hindi, but also in Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali and Assamese. It has already been made clear by the IMC that the reservation made by each state government will not be disturbed and that the NEET is only a qualifying examination. During November 2016, the then Tamil Nadu minister for School Education Ma Foi Pandiarajan announced that the government was examining the proposal to start coaching centres for government school students to prepare them for the NEET examination. Even before his short tenure in the OPS govt. came to an end, he went back on his assurance and stated that the matter will have to be considered by the health ministry and not by his department. May be he was made to withdraw the statement since the government had brought a new law in which one of the reasons stated was that it will be difficult to conduct coaching for the students. 

On Tuesday, the new Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisamy tried his best in Delhi, but there is no report of their being assured of their (state’s) law getting assent by the President of India. The fact that the law may not pass muster must have been indicated to him. The Supreme Court while upholding the IMC Regulations had ruled that, “It  was essential  to lay down a uniform minimum  standard  for  the  nation.  

Consequently, the Constitution makers provided for Entry 66 in List I with the objective of maintaining uniform standards of education in fields of research, higher education and technical education”. When already the Supreme Court had upheld the MCI Regulation followed by a central law on the subject, it is inconceivable that a state can make a law in a subject already an occupied field and also did not come within the jurisdiction of a state in making such a law. 

When the Governor of the state in his blog mentioned that he gets advice from three legal luminaries before proceeding with any action, it is not known as to why the functionaries of the state are either ignorant or being pushed around by pundits who have seen only the entrance of law colleges and not beyond that.

The question now is whether the state government will conduct its own admission procedure for medical and dental colleges for the academic year 2017 which is to begin in another 3 months? Even after the Supreme Court revoking its own order and thereby restoring the IMC Regulations for conducting NEET, the Chattisgarh government went ahead with its own admission procedure for medical colleges in that state, ignoring the requirement of NEET. When the matter came up before the Supreme Court, it not only cancelled all the admissions but also took the Chattisgarh government to task. In its order, it observed “the State…took  a gamble  and  that  gamble  has  unfortunately  not  succeeded.”(Rishab Choudhary, 2017).   

Since a lot is said about the plight of government school students from rural areas who are aspiring to become medical graduates, one must note that in the last few years, hardly 1 per cent of the students got admission to medical colleges. In 20142015, out of 2,975 seats, the students from government schools were able to get only 37 seats and for the year 2015-2016, the government school students were able to get 24 seats out of 2,253 seats available under the seats to be filled up by the state quota. 

Many educationists who work in the area of school education have opined that its only because the curriculum adopted by the State Board has become obsolete as more than a decade had passed since its adoption and that the state board is not testing the students about their knowledge regarding the Class 11 portion of the syllabus by conducting a public examination. This is not the practice adopted in the neighbouring states and the result is more number of students from those states get entry into seats filled up through entrance examination. 

Since the steam for opposing the NEET had waned, the new slogan by some of the apologists of social justice have now started staying that until the syllabus in the State Board is updated and students are trained, NEET should be postponed. Such belated thinking can only further muddle the water and will not show the way out for the state students. 

By our irresponsible promises, we have already confused the students for more than six years since the Regulations made by the MCI. It is better that the politicians, and the self-styled educationists keep off from this field and do some serious introspection as to what went wrong until now and make improvements in our curriculum. Let not the state go for another gamble and play with the lives of the Tamil Nadu students. NEET has come to a stay and let  our students make a neat preparation for the same.