By TFL Mawlong
In his letter to the editor “Flip side of NEET” (ST, Feb 7, 2017), Jerome K. Diengdoh stated that NEET (National Eligibility Entrance Test) could undercut medical studies of Meghalaya students and hence increase the influx of medical practitioners from outside. This is factually incorrect. NEET doesn’t change the state reservation quota in medical studies. The medical seats reserved for Khasi-Jaintia was 23 (plus/minus 1 or 2 seats), and it’s still the same now. What’s changed is that candidates are now selected according to their rankings in a state merit list based “solely” on the NEET score. The Khasi Jaintia students are effectively still competing only among themselves for the reserved 23 medical seats. And in my opinion, NEET is a much better process for selecting deserving candidates for medical seats than a score in the Class XII board exam. Few reasons may be given here.
Firstly, in our education system, emphasis has always been on rote learning and memorization. And in many cases, the board exam percentages hardly gauge the real cognitive ability of students. Consider this: with internal marks at 30, a student needs to score 60 out of 70 in theory exam in order to get 90%. And mind that with the pattern of board question papers and marking scheme today, scoring 60 out of 70 in theory exams is a cake walk for every serious candidate. Thus a science student today even without knowing much of the rudiments of science could still go on scoring 90% in the board exam. And thus while it is “true” that every bright student would score 80-90% or more these days, it is “not true” that everyone who scores 80-90% or more is bright. In fact many average students could score 90% or more with a little seriousness and private tuitions. Therefore there’s great possibility that a certain 50% scorer in the board exam might actually have higher cognitive ability than a certain 90% scorer.
Secondly, the NEET paper is of high standard. We can safely assume that a student with a NEET score of around 300 or more has good cognitive ability and knows the rudiments of science. Also contrary to what Jerome K. Diengdoh feels, definitely there is very high chance that a student with board score of 50% but who could score 400 in NEET has a much higher level of cognitive ability than a student with 90% score in a board exam but 200 score in NEET.
Thirdly, although NEET exam is MCQ (Multiple Choice Question) based, the “negative marking scheme” makes sure that candidates do not gain merely because of probability or chance or luck. Let me do the maths to help readers understand: In NEET exam, each correct answer is awarded 4 marks, and 1 mark is deducted for each incorrect answer. If a candidate guesses an answer randomly, then the chance that he chooses correct option is ¼ (because out of 4 options just 1 is correct) and the chance that it is incorrect is ¾ (because out of 4 options 3 are incorrect). Now let’s say a candidate randomly guesses answers of 100 such questions, then mathematically, the likely number of correct answers would be: (100 MULTIPLY BY the chance that the option he chooses is correct) = (100 x ¼) = 25. And the number of incorrect attempts would be: (100 MULTIPLY BY the chance that the option he chooses is incorrect) = (100 x ¾) = 75. So his/her score would be: (number of correct answers MULTIPLY BY 4 marks) MINUS (number of incorrect answers MULTIPLY BY 1 mark) = (25 x 4 – 75 x 1) = 25 marks. That is, a candidate will score just 25 marks on a “normal” day if he/she just guesses the answers for 100 questions. And of course if he/she has an “extremely lucky day” he/she might score even 100 to 200 marks from the 100 guessed answers, and if “extremely unlucky” he/she might even end up with less than “minus 30” marks from these 100 guessed answers. This is basic Arithmetic and Maths don’t lie.
And yes indeed, as Jerome K. Diengdoh pointed out, in NEET exam (or in all the erstwhile AIPMT exams for that matter) tribal candidates of Meghalaya find it hard to compete with those from other states for the 7.5% tribal seats ‘within’ the 15% all India quota seats. For instance out of 720 marks, the highest score in NEET 2016 by Khasi-Jaintia candidates was 351 only and only 7 Khasi-Jaintia candidates crossed 300 marks. Whereas in Manipur, 13 tribal candidates crossed 400 marks, 46 tribal candidates crossed 351 and a total of 97 tribal candidates crossed the 300 marks in NEET 2016 (source: Manipur Directorate of Health Service).
This lack of competitiveness seen in Khasi-Jaintia candidates is because: (1) our schools and private tuitions don’t teach much. They naively represent science as mere facts or formulas or sets of derivations to be learnt by rote; (2) although coaching institutes are better placed than schools in imparting science education, sadly, “none” of the coaching institutes in Shillong have much value; they are not methodical and they totally lack professionalism. People, however, are being fooled by the notion that “something is better than nothing”, not realizing that this notion has driven many promising students to spoiling their careers in these coaching institutes.