Why TAmil Nadu Is Against NEET Flashcards
Tamil Nadu had a system granting admission to medical courses based on Class 12 state board marks, saying it allowed students from villages and small towns to enter medical colleges too and last year when the all India medical entrance exam was held for the first time, the Supreme Court had exempted Tamil Nadu from NEET, but this year it refused.
On June this, the Tamil Nadu government came out with an order which reserved 85 per cent of MBBS and BDS seats to state board students and only 15 per cent for CBSE and other boards, this was quashed by the courts later. However, this year, despite having given repeated oral assurances, the Tamil Nadu government failed to get the state exempted from NEET exam-based admissions into medical colleges.
The victim of the tug of war between centre and Tamil Nadu were the students. TN GOVT. failed to prepare students under its school education board for the demanding common entrance test conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, and it could not defend before the judiciary its controversial decision to block 85% of medical seats for State board students. It was an act of desperation that led the State government to reserve 85% of the seats for Tamil Nadu board students. The biggest flaw was that classifying students based on the board through which they passed their higher secondary examination was legally impermissible. It was no surprise when a single judge struck down the order. The time has come for the State government to focus on raising academic standards at the school level. It can no more evade its responsibility for State board students not faring well in highly competitive entrance tests. It should rework its school syllabus and teaching methods to get State board students NEET-ready
The myth of merit:
NEET operates on the basis of rewarding the talented performers, in an unhealthy competitive atmosphere. The Union and state governments that are keen on ensuring the implementation of NEET are unfortunately overlooking the classification of our educational systems - state board, central board, ICSE, etc. We have to remember social, cultural and economic indicators which play a crucial role in the upbringing of a community. So when a student from a rural government state board school competes with an urban, private CBSE school-educated student in a NEET platform, we need to examine what role privilege plays in our educational system.
Further, in the rat race for clearing entrance exams such as NEET, CAT, JEE, etc., what goes unnoticed is the sheer absence of humanities and social sciences in the higher secondary school sector.
Somehow, the supposition of medicine, engineering, and management as “professional” programmes, which are capable of giving lifelong financial rewards, has come to upset knowledge domains like history, economics, literature and even basic sciences like physics, chemistry and mathematics.
As a society, we need historians, philosophers, social scientists, mathematicians, and poets. So, there is a basic requirement to nurture all knowledge domains.
Such elitist educational policies, political mishandling and an approving middle class have ensured the defence of NEET, and thereby destroyed the hopes of many.
As individuals, as states, we need to reflect. The paradoxical acceptance of NEET in most states and the opposition posed in the Tamil political domain is not yet another cause to be sidestepped.
It calls for a critical re-examination of some of our fundamental values in the educational system.
A Global research suggests that standardised tests do not predict life outcomes but grades do. There’s also an ongoing discussion in countries such as the US on whether standardised tests like the SAT should be used at all in deciding college admissions. Research indicates that school grades are a much better predictor of the personality, which in turn determines a student’s actual success. After all, what a standardised test ends up measuring is how socially advantaged a student is – given that access to coaching classes, preparation guides and the like have a massive influence on test scores.
We cannot avoid the fact that Not only are the young people in Tamil Nadu more likely to go to school, they are also more likely to stay in school. The state has one of the lowest dropout rates from its schools. Further, Tamil Nadu enrolls 44.3% of those who finish high school into higher educational institutes. That’s the highest gross enrolment ratio into higher education (GER) among all states in India.
Tamil Nadu’s decision to broad-base its education instead of filtering through entrance exams at the gates of colleges is a conscious policy choice. The political platform of the state aims to keep children in school and get them to college over and above testing them for “quality”.
