Editor,
Amidst huge protests with meaningful suggestions by our students who aspire to become doctors, to postpone the NEET until COVID-19 subsides, the authorities backed by the Supreme Court paid a deaf ear to those pleas. One month of TV discussion taught me one doctrine. I now know why our students are in a state of utter desperation and helplessness. When three girls from Tamil Nadu took the extreme step to die of suicide then the picture became clearer. All three who died of suicide were the one or two failures, some even managed to be wait-listed. The story of a boy who also took his own life was more pathetic. Last year he could manage to clear entrance and was invited to one college. But the fees charged were too much for the father who is just a poor farmer. Scrutinising the case further all students all over India who excelled in their studies in NCERT schools be it CBSE or ICSE or State Boards had to study voluminous bazaar notes and the majority of these poor meritorious students concentrated 60% in Biology, 25% in Chemistry and only 15% in Physics. Worst these bazaar notes are very expensive very heavy in weight. So all those valuable years of studying beautifully compiled textbooks by 16 renowned professors of JNU, IIT’S and PGT’S proved to be in vain as no questions were ever set from those books.
What prompted the then government of 2012, the UPA to do away with the good practice of our states taking the help of their State Directorates of Health Service to select the best in Physics, Chemistry and Biology from ICSE and CBSE Boards and send them to the medical colleges in order of merit is not known. What we know is the NEET coaching centres are flourishing like mushrooms and till date the NEET coaching centres have become the most flourishing industry in the country. After Class X Science results, the best rich students would be pulled in and two years of heavy coaching to attack weird problems never found in any NCERT textbooks. This would produce results which then advertise the coaching centres fighting for supremacy.
It appears that the paper setters, moderators evaluators are from these centres. Why I say this is because in the last 2020 NEET paper in Physics, there were five very wrong questions and surprisingly one boy scored 100% in P.C.B. Two wrongs cannot make a right. Objective questions very hidden in nature with silly choice of (1), (2), (3), (4) predominate. Except two questions on the Guitar and Photo- electricity which deserve praise as being conceptual, the rest are simply memorisation of formulae, hundreds of them followed by lengthy arithmetic of Class VII standard of division and multiplication. These take the students to more than ninety seconds, 30 seconds more than time allotted. Worst is that it appears that the paper setter does not follow the 2019 – 2020 NCERT curriculum which had undergone some change. Transistor and Logic Gates were omitted as per order. But these topics were set. So for our poor who have no money to be attend coaching classes, is this a fair deal? Is there any justice in it?
Tamil Nadu which had since 2012 opposed NEET is now repentant following the 3 suicides before examination, to resort to the old method of selection. I do pray our Education Department emulates the state of Tamil Nadu. The present 2020 NEET qualifier assisted by SC concessions are two or three time repeaters. So unless we act, NEET is going to be the National Elimination Test of the “meritorious poor” who cannot afford to be extra heavily coached as the rich do with NEET coaching. Hence the meritorious poor will no longer become doctors. Isn’t this nepotism of the highest order?
Yours etc.,
Manbha Diengdoh,
Via email
Entry points & MRSSA: Case for judicial scrutiny
Editor,
The decision of the Meghalaya government to construct entry and exit points at interstate borders apparently to curb influx and provide security to its citizens is an unwarranted and regressive step. The provision, a part of the Meghalaya Resident Security and Safety Act is a gross violation of Article 19 of the Indian Constitution which guarantees “the right to move freely throughout the territory of India” and therefore bound to face stern judicial scrutiny.
Several questions remain unanswered in this regard. The Government of Meghalaya needs to answer 1) Why it sees citizens of India as a threat if they enter the state freely. 2) What was the need to bring in a law similar to ILP which has already been rejected by the Centre. 3) Why disclosure of information at the entry and exit points should not be seen as state surveillance and violating right to privacy. 4) Where is the evidence/study to suggest large scale influx is taking place in Meghalaya when the 2011 census reports suggests otherwise? 5)Why entry/exit gates are being built on interstate roadways rather than at the international borders.
The comments of the Chief Minister on the last day of the autumn assembly session warning the state not to harass people at the entry points and at the same time admitting that out of 100 Indians perhaps only 1 may be found to be an illegal immigrant, nullifies the rationale and effectiveness behind such a draconian act which involves crores of rupees of taxpayers’ money.
At a time when the world is advocating free trade and increasingly becoming global, such experiments do not augur well for a state that envisions itself as a leading tourist destination of the country. On the contrary it promotes alienation and portrays the state in poor light.
Yours etc.,
Bhaskar D,
Via email