Students of Tamil Nadu have exposed the hollowness behind the demand of Dravidian politicians to exempt the State from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Examination, the qualifying test for admission to under graduate and post graduate courses in medical schools in the country.
A total of 1,23,078 students from Tamil Nadu wrote the NEET 2019. Out of this, 59,785 students qualified for counselling. This is almost 10 per cent more than the students who qualified in last year’s examination. While only 39.56 per cent of the Tamil Nadu students who appeared in last year’s NEET qualified for counselling, this year it rose to 48.57 per cent, a commendable performance according to educationists.
The reason for this year’s commendable performance by Tamil Nadu students is being attributed to the free NEET coaching centres opened by the Government of Tamil Nadu across the State. The syllabus of the Plus Two course in the State is not up to the national level and this was being seen as the cause for the poor show by the students from Tamil Nadu earlier.
The demand for exempting the State from NEET reached a feverish pitch last year when a girl by name Anita allegedly committed suicide for failing to qualify in the NEET. Anita had scored 1176 out of 1200 marks in the State Board Examination while she managed 86 out of 720 in the NEET . Students appearing for Plus Two examinations in the State Board Examination in Tamil Nadu manage to score 99 percent marks but fail miserably when they try to crack entrance examination to National Defence Academy, Indian Institute of Technology or the Indian Institute of science Education and Research because of the poor standard of the syllabus taught in Government owned schools.
A senior Congress leader from Tamil Nadu blamed the DMK and the AIADMK for the campaign against NEET. “Students in Tamil Nadu are in no way inferior to their counters in other States. It was the Dravidian politicians who confused them by politicising tissue. We all know that private college management and school owners are behind this anti-NEET campaign,” said the leader who did not want his name to be quoted lest the DMK leadership get hurt for speaking the truth.
Prof B M Hegde, vice chancellor, Manipal University, who was the principal of the famous Kastutba Medical College said that NEET was the best option available right now to find out the students with the aptitude. “I am surprised by the resentment shown by the politicians towards the NEET. If the students have no objections, why should the political leaders be concerned about it?” asked Prof Hegde.
It may sound interesting, but Tamil Nadu is the only State in the Indian Union which is vehemently opposing the NEET. Even students from the State who appeared for thus year’s NEET felt that it was a exciting experience to appear for an all India qualifying examination . But the suicide of two girls at Tirupur and Pattukottai immediately after the announcement of the results of the NEET 2019 has cast shadows . M K Stalin, DMK chief, issued a statement blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the death of the two girls who, he alleged, resorted to the extreme measure after failing to qualify in the test.