Even as political parties and language experts demand inclusion of Odia language in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG)-2017 for admission into medical courses, there are not many takers for the language among the students preparing for the examination who rather prefer English language.
The Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has on Wednesday announced that NEET-UG would be conducted in eight languages from the 2017-18 academic year in Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu and Tamil.
Students enrolled in Bhubaneswar”s leading coaching centres, including Aakash, Gurukul and Adyant, are in favour of writing the examination in English.
Even the Plus II final year students of the colleges of BJB, Rajadhani, Rama Devi, Maharshi, Basic Science and Royal Science too have expressed their keenness to appear at the NEET in English and feel the demand of State Government is “unjustified” and against “non-Odia students”.
It is worth mentioning that the coaching centres offer coaching in English. They are ignorant about the Odia terms for scientific features. Further, the State Government has not made any efforts to prepare guidebooks for such students, say many.
A majority of the language campaigners, ironically, send their children to English medium schools, the students allege. These students feel if Odia has to be included as a medium in the NEET examination, the language should be strengthened right from the elementary level to enable the students to be conversant with Odia terms for scientific terms.