Amid the rising clamour from political parties of the UPA camp demanding postponement of JEE and NEET entrance test, the coaching institutes too have joined the chorus demanding postponement of examinations in larger interest of students. The coaching institutes claim that Centre’s decision to hold examination during pandemic is ‘anti-students’ demanding the examination should be cancelled or delayed.
However, there are some who are in opinion that ‘life has to go on’ and examinations should be held with proper safety measures. Manoj Kumar, who runs Toppers Academy—engineering entrance coaching institute said, “In this corona pandemic bus services are stopped. If the Centre goes with the idea of holding examination the biggest sufferers will be students from poor and middle class category as they will find difficulties in reaching examination centre from rural areas.”
Kumar further said, “Due to corona pandemic, coaching institutes are closed for around six months. In rural areas students are facing difficulties in having uninterrupted internet examinations with the online studies getting affected. In such a situation if the Centre goes with holding examinations they will be betraying the deserving candidates from entering prestigious institutes.”
Highlighting the government loopholes in conducting examinations, Manoj Kumar further said, “In the NEET and JEE admit card, students have to fill details about movement from one cities to another in the last one month, information about whether any family members or neighbor is infected with corona and others. The IIT and NEET administration should have asked such details before as there is no logic or reason behind asking such details during examination day.”
However, there are others who opine that examination should be held as ‘zero session’ is no solution. SS Singh of Educatiff Heritage said, “We have interacted with hundreds of students, majority of them are in opinion that examinations should be held.” Singh further said, “If examination is postponed engineering medical colleges will go for zero session which will not be good for students nor for engineering colleges.”
He further said, “If examination is postponed the biggest suffers will be private or self-financing engineering and medical colleges. They will be financially broken.” However, students are of the opinion that examinations should be held. Animesh Rajan, an engineering aspirant said, “We don’t when the country will come out from the corona pandemic. Government and private offices, markets and other services are opened, in such a situation there is no reason to postpone examinations. However, all safety norms should be maintained in the larger interest of students.”
NEET is planned on September 13, engineering entrance examination JEE mains is scheduled from September 1-6. Around 9.53 lakh students are registered for JEE Mains examination and 15.97 lakh students have registered for NEET examinations.