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Education News

NEET-UG 2024. stroy the dream of poor, rural,
Evidently, Banerjee drew inspira- non-Hindi mother-language
tion from the Tamil Nadu legislative medium students of becom-
assembly which unanimously passed ing doctors, it also wants
a resolution urging the Centre to to create a cadre of doctors
scrap NEET. On July 25, Karnataka who want urban and foreign
became the third state — after TN careers, with lesser ties to
and Bengal — to officially request soil and the realities of rural
exemption from NEET. The resolu- areas, where two-thirds of the
tion to abolish NEET — a single country’s population resides.
Central government exam — is being This bias towards urban, rich,
interpreted as demand for state Anglo-Hindi students affects
governments to control admissions not only aspiring doctors
into medical colleges within their Mamata Banerjee: official abolition resolution but the health-care system
jurisdiction. as well. India finds it hard to
EET-UG was first proposed in Kabir struck down NEET-UG as the get qualified doctors for rural post-
N2012 to eliminate the burden of common medical entrance examina- ings. An urban rich bias will further
school-leavers aspiring to become tion. Challenging this judgement, destroy the system irreparably. The
medical practitioners having to the Medical Council of India (MCI) only beneficiaries will be the private
write multiple exams conducted by filed a review petition and on April nursing homes and big health-care
states in the hope of being admitted 28, 2016, the Supreme Court upheld chains.”
into one or other college, and more NEET-UG as the sole entrance exam Undoubtedly there is some merit
importantly to standardise numer- for admission into medical colleges in this point of view. It’s pertinent to
ous entrance exams. The suspicion countrywide. note that the number of doctors of
was that some state governments However, ab initio the Trinamool Indian origin practising in the UK,
were setting the admission bar too Congress government in West Bengal US and western countries is legion.
low and question papers were set has been protesting that the centrally Most of them have received highly
to favour students from state board conducted NEET poses major chal- subsidised medical education funded
schools. lenges for students from Bengali-me- by Indian (direct and indirect)
On the other hand, state govern- dium schools of the state. As a result, taxpayers. Perhaps there is a case for
ments contend that the common MCI agreed to NEET-UG being writ- graduating barefoot native medical
NEET-UG exam is based on the ten in Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, practitioners.
syllabus of the Central Board of Marathi, Tamil and Bengali. Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
Secondary Education (CBSE), a In 2017, question papers were set
subsidiary of the Union education in different languages for NEET-UG. TAMIL NADU
ministry which has a mere 28,960 But immediately, protests surfaced
schools affiliated with it. This places that the Bengali language question SEP over-kill
students from the country’s other paper was “tougher” than the Hindi
66 school-leaving exam boards at a language paper. The TMC alleged draft of tamil nadu’s state
disadvantage. that the agenda of the BJP govern- Education Policy (SEP), de-
In this context, it’s pertinent to ment at the Centre was to make A veloped as an alternative to
note that prior to 2012, CBSE used sure that Bengali-medium students the National Education Policy (NEP)
to conduct an All India Pre-Medical ranked lower, or not at all in the 2020, has been submitted to the rul-
Test (AIPMT) for admission into NEET merit list. Chief Minister ing DMK government by the Justice
Central government medical col- Mamata Banerjee, who was never Murugesan-led panel.
leges, while states conducted their enthusiastic about NEET-UG in the After the DMK was voted to power
own tests for medical colleges under first instance, took “very serious in the legislative assembly election of
their jurisdiction. In 2012, the UPA note” of this charge describing it as 2021, while presenting the new gov-
government at the Centre introduced “an attack on the merit of students of ernment’s budget for 2022, Chief Min-
the one-country, one-exam, NEET- Bengal”. ister M.K. Stalin announced that an
UG for admission into all 706 medi- In an essay published in Scroll exclusive education policy for Tamil
cal colleges countrywide. After more some years ago, Harvard alum and Nadu would be formalised. In June
than 80 writ petitions were filed faculty at the Indian Statistical Insti- 2022, he established a committee of
opposing NEET-UG, in July, 2013, tute, Kolkata, Garga Chatterjee, experts from various fields, chaired
then Chief Justice of India, Altamas wrote: “NEET plans to not only de- by Justice (Retd.) D. Murugesan, to

30 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2024