By SHEFA RAFI
The NEET fever has gripped students across the country with a whopping 7,95,031 lakh medical aspirants taking up the exam at centres spread across the country this year. However, they faced the test in a grip of fear following intensive frisking and dress code regulation. In Tamil Nadu, as many as 1.23 lakh aspirants took the test with lots of hope. Sadly, only 59,785 cleared the test without not even single candidate finding a place in the top 50. Delhi registered the highest percentage of pass with 74.92.
And the suicide of three girls in Tamil Nadu including one from neighbouring knitwear city of Tirupur has sent shockwaves across the State with protests by opposition being reignited seeking Centre to scrap NEET once for it has turned out to be nightmarish for candidates from Tamil Nadu. What is intriguing is that even bright students with merit miserably fail in NEET robbing them off the chance of pursuing their dream medical course.
Former Headmaster of Sarvajana High School and a veteran educationist S S Rajagopalan had remarked couple of years ago that there has been series of protests against NEET, but the powers that be at the Centre continued to conduct the test showing no concern for the repeated pleas. And much saddening to infer the ordeal faced by girls while taking up the test.
How come the candidates could indulge in malpractice when NEET has 180 multiple choice questions with 180 minutes duration for them to answer. Just glancing thru’ the question paper itself takes two to three minutes for the students and they need to answer all the questions in the available time. Is there a necessity for a body search? It’s just humiliation to candidates more so to girls.
What’s the use in conducting NEET when there were several different questions papers when it was announced that it’s one examination a common for all candidates across the country. The purpose has been totally defeated. It is generally felt that NEET is not NEAT with so many controversies and hence it’s better to do away with it in common interest of students.
