MK Stalin had constituted a panel headed by retired judge AK Rajan to study the impact of NEET.
Chennai:
The Tamil Nadu Assembly today passed the Admission to Tamil Nadu Undergraduate Medical Degree Course Bill, which seeks to prevent medical admission on the basis of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for students from the state. Now, all the medical admissions in the state will be based on the marks obtained by the students in class 12. Barring the BJP, all parties supported the bill.
The bill challenged a central law and only the President’s assent would make a difference.
On June 5, the chief minister had constituted a high-level committee, headed by retired judge AK Rajan, to study the impact of NEET and the rapidly growing coaching centres. Based on the panel’s findings, the government recommended scrapping of NEET immediately.
According to the government, the committee has said that NEET favors only the wealthy and the elite, thwarting the dream of pursuing medical education by equally disadvantaged social groups.
The committee said NEET affected rural and urban-poor students of government and Tamil medium schools, especially those whose families earn less than Rs 2.5 lakh annually.
NEET does not ensure eligibility or standard. It entitled only low-performing students to get admission in MBBS and that if NEET continues, the state’s health system will be badly hit without enough doctors in primary health centres.
For almost a decade, there was no entrance test for medical admission in Tamil Nadu. During the UPA regime, its ally – the DMK – was able to get the President’s assent for the waiver.
However, the AIADMK government could not get the same exemption from its ally – the BJP. The Supreme Court had also ruled in favor of banning NEET.
Dr. Vijayabhaskar, AIADMK MLA and former state health minister, said, “We are supporting it. Let’s see if this strategy works or not.”
Sources told NDTV that state government banks are forcing the data.
A study of medical admissions four years before and after NEET shows that there has been a nearly 10-fold drop in state board students seeking medical admissions, from 380 to nearly 40. But there has been a rapid increase in CBSE students making it, from just three to over 200, almost 70 times higher. Most of them had taken private tuitions to crack the exam. A large number of candidates cleared NEET after two to four years of preparation.
This is a first of its kind study on the impact of NEET in medical admissions through the prism of social justice, economic backwardness beyond reservation.
Chief Minister MK Stalin expects these findings to be supported by the Supreme Court and other chief ministers as well. Whatever be the result, NEET will remain in Tamil Nadu this year at least for medical admissions.
A 19-year-old aspirant, Dhanush, died of suicide on Sunday, hours before taking the NEET for the third time. In the last few years, 14 others, including some toppers, have died due to failure in NEET.
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