Come clean on NEET

The Madras High Court has made some spectacular observations in a NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) - related case. These observations are perhaps born out of genuine concern for the poor students. But apparent failure on the part of honourable judges (N.Kirubakaran and P.Velmurugan) to ask relevant questions seems to have misled them.

In Tamil Nadu, a preponderant majority of successful students in NEET has gone through private coaching which costs around Rs.5 lac. This isolated statistic has made the judges observe that NEET is anti-poor. Is this the case in other states also?

There is widespread resistance (fuelled by donation-greedy medical colleges promoted by political leaders) to NEET only in Tamil Nadu. It is not possible that other states are not concerned about the prospects of poor students. Students in other states are able to clear the NEET exam even without additional coaching because the educational standards in their state schools are good enough to enable their students to get through NEET.

So the answer to the problem faced exclusively by poor students in Tamil Nadu lies in improvement in the standards of school education. Instead, if we do away with NEET, we will only throw the baby with the bathwater. The court's gratuitous question "Why can't the Centre cancel NEET like other systems implemented by the Congress-DMK regime?" unnecessarily paints the issue in political colour.

Tamil Nadu should stop treating the students as dumb folks who need to be protected from knowledge and start respecting them as eager minds which have a welcome hunger for relevant knowledge.