The Freethought Party of India has urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik not to budge before the lobby for conducting NEET in Odia medium and demanded the exam for admission in medical course be held only in English. This would help the Indian doctors of tomorrow to fairly compete with their counterparts abroad, it said.
The party also demanded that no public money should be wasted in producing +2 level Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Zoology books in Odia.
A FPI Press release said that in order to be a doctor, each medical
student has to read books and journals of global standard that are already available in English. Any attempt to read any medical book in Odia/Tamil/Telugu/Hindi/Bengali/Gujarati would be simply a waste of time, energy and money and it would be practically of little use for a doctor aspiring to earn name and fame in his/her professional life. No patient will ever go to a sub-standard doctor for any treatment. It further said, educationists like Prof RN Panda, former Principal of BJB Junior College and Prof Basudev Chhatoi, Chairman of Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE), are of solid view that appearing the NEET Exam in English would be highly fruitful.
So the medical students of Odisha should not play into the hands of the lobbyists for NEET in Odia.